The Muggle Way - COMPLETE
by FullMoonDreams
Summary: During the summer holidays between sixth and seventh year, Remus and Peter make a bet with Sirius and James that they can't go for a week without using magic. Can James and Sirius do things the muggle way? MWPP
1. The Bet

Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise...like you didn't know that already.

A/N: No I haven't forgotten my other fics. This one is not likely to be very long at all but it has been buzzing round in my head and stopping me writing my other fics, so rather than ignore this pesky muse I thought it best I write it so that humour doesn't accidently creep into my more serious fics.

The Muggle Way

It was the second week of the last summer holidays that the Marauders would be able to enjoy. The coming September would see them returning to Hogwarts for their final year of studying and their NEWT examinations. In the meantime though, the Marauders were all enjoying their summer break, especially because it was the first one during which they had been allowed to do magic outside of school.

"Accio lemonade," Sirius called out as he pointed his wand across the room and summoned the glass of lemonade to him. It flew over Remus's head, dripping slightly on its journey.

"Padfoot, really!" Remus rolled his eyes and brushed his hand through his hair to see how damp it was.

"What?" Sirius asked, clearly confused by his friend's comment.

"Would it have killed you to actually get up and fetch the glass?" Remus asked as he wiped his now sticky hand on his jeans.

"Why would I do that?" asked Sirius in all seriousness. "That's what magic is for…to be used!"

"If all wizards thought like that, they'd all be obese from the total lack of exercise," muttered Peter, shooting an envious look at Sirius's slim waistline, even as he picked up a second donut.

"I'm still trying to decide whether you or Prongs is the laziest," Remus commented casually.

"Prongs," Peter chimed in. "He actually apparates to the bathroom and back rather than walk the ten feet."

"We're wizards," James piped up. "This is what we do!"

"But you don't have to do it all the time," Remus pointed out. "What are you going to do when we're back at school? You won't be able to apparate to the bathroom or the kitchens then."

James sighed dramatically. "I'll struggle through."

"Purebloods," Peter whispered knowingly to Remus with a smirk.

"Absolutely hopeless," Remus agreed with a smirk of his own.

"We're not hopeless, we're wizards," Sirius remarked as he levitated his now empty glass back to the kitchen counter.

"And brilliant ones at that," James agreed just before he apparated directly in front of Remus, making him jump backwards and spill his own drink down the front of his shirt.

Sirius burst out laughing whilst James made a half-hearted effort to apologise.

"I'm going to go change my shirt," Remus said as he gingerly pulled the damp fabric away from his chest with two fingers.

"Just use your wand to clean it," Sirius suggested, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world and he couldn't believe that Remus hadn't thought of it for himself.

"Unlike you two, I don't feel the need to use magic for every little thing."

"They'd be hopeless as muggles," Peter chuckled.

"Muggles," Remus echoed in a voice that was little more than a whisper. He stood a few paces from the rest of the boys as the beginnings of an idea flittered through his mind.

Sirius was the first to notice that he was standing there silently with an odd expression on his face. "Moony? I thought you were going to change your shirt?"

"Uh oh," James shook his head and shot a worried look at Sirius. "He's got that look again."

"You're right, he has," Sirius's own face sobered considerably. "He's plotting mischief against us."

"Undoubtedly."

Remus smirked at his friends. "No mischief, a bet," he said with a grin. "A bet that you two can't function for one single week without using magic."

"Of course we can," James snorted. "It's not like we've been allowed to do magic outside of school until this summer."

"But you've always had your parents and house elves to do everything for you," Remus pointed out.

"They don't do everything," James automatically replied, although Remus could tell he didn't sound entirely convinced by his own answer.

"They cook your meals, wash up the pots afterwards, wash your clothes, make the beds…" Remus's voice trailed off when he realised that James and Sirius weren't arguing with him.

"I'll bet this is the first time either of you have had to fend for yourselves," Peter chimed in. "I agree with Moony, there's no way you two could go without using magic, not without having parents and house elves waiting on you hand and foot."

"Like your mother doesn't wait on you," Sirius snapped.

"Not here now though, is she?" Peter pointed out.

Sirius and James had no reply to that rather obvious fact. They were staying for a week at the Pettigrew's holiday cottage on the east coast. There were no adults around at all and the four boys were being trusted on their own for the first time in their lives. Remus privately believed that the Potters were merely glad to get the two primary mischief-makers out of the way for a while.

"So are you going to take the bet?" Remus asked mischievously. "A bet that you two can't do without magic for a whole week."

"What do we get when we win?" Sirius asked in his somewhat arrogant manner.

"You get to choose what we do on the last day," Remus suggested.

"The beach!" Sirius exclaimed excitedly, as though they hadn't been arguing about it all morning.

"And when we win," Peter interrupted, "it'll be a trip to the British Museum."

"Bor-ing," James whined.

"Then you'd best make sure you win," Remus smirked. "Or else it's a boring trip to a dusty old museum for you."

"Better make sure they don't cheat either." Peter pointed at Sirius's right hand, which was still clutching his wand.

"Your parents have a safe here, don't they?" Remus asked.

"Yeah, it's in the study." Peter held out his hand for Sirius's wand. Sirius looked like Peter had suggested he chop off his arm and hand it over, rather than simply relinquish his wand for a week.

"If you don't hand it over, we win by default," Remus smirked.

"Fine!" Sirius muttered and he passed his wand, albeit reluctantly, to Peter.

"You too, Prongs," Remus ordered his equally reluctant friend.

Once the wands were safely locked away, and Remus had changed into a clean shirt, the four boys sat down around the kitchen table in order to discuss the finer points of the bet.

Remus unrolled a piece of parchment and tapped his quill against it.

"What's that for?" Peter asked.

"We're going to make sure that they're thoroughly tested in this," Remus replied. "That they're not going to make us do all the work, or live like slobs for the week. We're going to give them a list of things they are going to have to do, in order to win this bet."

"Make them cook a meal the muggle way," Peter suggested, and Remus dutifully wrote it down.

Half an hour later and the list was coming along nicely.

"Each time you complete one of the tasks we'll tick it off the list," Remus explained as he added ordering take-out by telephone.

"Each time they complete one properly," Peter corrected. "They're not going to burn a meal, serve it to us, and call it done."

"And we reserve the right to add to the list as and when things come to mind," Remus smirked.

"That's hardly very fair," Sirius complained. "What's to stop you adding a dozen things on the last morning to make us fail?"

"We'll limit it to one addition per day then," Remus compromised.

"This is going to be the easiest bet we've ever won," James gloated as he re-read the list. "How difficult can it be to make a bed?"

"Just remember you have to do it properly," Remus reminded him. "Hospital corners and all that."

"What's a hospital corner?" Sirius asked doubtfully. "You're sure you've not made that up to make sure we fail?"

"The bed in my parents' room is made properly," Peter said. "Just go take a look at that one."

"I still say this is going to be a doddle," James grinned. "If muggles can do it, it'll be easy as pie for us."

"In that case you've nothing to worry about, have you?" Remus asked innocently.

"Nothing at all," Sirius grinned. "So pass over that list and let's get started."

Remus shook his head briefly and pulled out his wand, tapping the parchment with it. "Now you can have it," he said with a smirk. "Now I know you can't tamper with it."

"Anyone would think you didn't trust us," Sirius huffed.

"Not as far as I could throw you," Remus replied easily as he stood up and left James and Sirius to ponder which of the tasks they would tackle first.

"What's a telephone again?" he heard James whisper.

"Like taking candy from a baby," Peter snickered to Remus.

"Hard to believe that pair actually take Muggle Studies, isn't it?" replied Remus as he joined Peter in laughing at the fun they were about to have at the expense of their arrogant friends.


	2. The Lights are on but

The Lights are on but…

The sun had set more than half an hour ago and the room was now almost completely dark.

Remus was sitting on the sofa, his nose seemingly stuck in his book, the pages lit from the small battery operated book light. Settled beside him was Sirius, squinting at his own book, a manual about motorbike engines that Remus couldn't even begin to comprehend. But Remus wasn't reading his own book; instead he was smirking across the room at Peter and trying not to burst out laughing at the behaviour of the other two marauders.

First there was Sirius, determined to prove that he could still see to read despite the growing dark and the lack of magic to light up the room. He was overcoming the problem of the lack of light by inching closer and closer to Remus, hoping that the light from Remus's book light would be sufficient to illuminate his own pages. 

And across the other side of the room there was James, who was trying a different tactic. James had at least picked up enough information in Muggle Studies to realise that lights were turned on by a switch…he just didn't seem to know which one. So James was now crawling around the edges of the room, in the dark, randomly flicking each and every switch he could find. He was now on his third circuit of the room and still hadn't realised that he had passed the light switch twice already.

"Prongs!" yelled Peter after James had turned the television set off for the third time. 

"Sorry," James apologised. "I'm just…er…"

"What?" Peter asked, wondering if James was about to finally admit what it was he was trying to do. 

James waved his hand airily and mumbled 'nothing' as he continued on his circuit. 

Peter snickered and winked at Remus. Remus smirked back before turning the page of his book and moving the book light to the opposite side…the side that was furthest away from Sirius. 

Sirius responded to this action by inching so close he was practically in Remus's lap, thus earning him a sharp elbow in the ribs for his efforts. 

"Why don't you just put the light on?" Remus asked with a pointed nod towards the overhead light. 

Sirius mumbled something unintelligible and shut his book. "Think I'll turn in for the night," he said as he made a huge production out of yawning and stretching. 

"Good idea," James commented as he crawled out from under a table, banging his head in the process. 

"But it's still early," Remus stated innocently, trying his hardest not to smirk.

"Been a long day," James lied as he produced an equally fake yawn of his own. 

With that final comment James and Sirius stumbled through the dark room towards the staircase. 

A few minutes later the sound of a crash came from upstairs, followed by loud swearing. Remus and Peter laughed out loud, unable to hold it back any longer. 

"You want the light on?" Peter chuckled. Remus nodded his reply since he was laughing too hard to speak. Peter stood up and walked over to the doorway. A flick of the switch later and the room was bathed in light. 

"You'd have thought they might have noticed the light switch when we turned them on yesterday," Remus commented with a bemused shake of his head. 

"They'll be taking more notice in the future," Peter said as he sat back down and continued watching his programme. 

"They're going to be really stubborn about asking for help."

"All the more amusing for us then, isn't it?"

Remus grinned back at Peter. He couldn't agree more. 

* * *

The next morning Peter was reading the muggle newspaper and eating a bowl of cereal when James appeared in the kitchen. 

"Where's Remus?" he asked as he looked around the room cautiously. 

"Still in bed," replied Peter, as though this was a rather obvious question. Surely after living in the same dorm for six years, James might have noticed that Remus was not exactly a morning person. 

"Good," James said with a grin as he sat down opposite Peter. "I wanted a talk with you about this bet."

Peter raised a blond eyebrow and waited for James to elaborate. 

"You don't really want to spend the last day of our week at a museum, do you?" James's casual question was a little too casual and Peter could tell immediately just where James was going to be taking their conversation. 

"Why not? I'm going away with my parents these holidays too, and we always end up somewhere with a beach. I'd like to do something different and Remus made the museum sound really exciting."

"Remus gets excited about homework," James pointed out with a snort. 

"No, he doesn't," Peter sighed. "He just likes to get it out of the way as soon as possible so he can enjoy himself without worrying about it."

"Yeah, well…" James shot a nervous glance back towards the door. "I didn't come in here to talk about Remus. I came to ask for your help. You help me and Padfoot win this bet and I'll…er…"

"You'll what?" Peter asked suspiciously. 

"Me and Padfoot will…" James's voice trailed off as he frantically tried to find inspiration. 

"Do my Defence homework for the whole of September?" Peter suggested.

"Deal!" James quickly agreed. "So you'll help us out a bit, give us a few tips and point us in the right direction?"

Peter shrugged agreeably. "Okay."

"So how about you tell me where the light switch is, ready for tonight?" James asked.

"Turning on the muggle lights isn't even on the list," Peter pointed out. "If you'd have asked last night, we'd have told you where it was."

"And have Remus smirking at us like we're stupid?"

"We were both doing that anyway."

"Good point," James conceded. "So where is it?"

Peter pointed to the wall near the door. "Over there."

"Of course!" James exclaimed as he rolled his eyes at his own denseness. "Next to doorways so that you can turn them on as soon as you come into a room, right?"

Peter chuckled. "That would be the idea."

"You won't regret helping us out," James promised. "You'll get such high marks in Defence in September it'll boost your average for the whole year."

Peter smiled and turned back to his cereal. He felt a twinge of guilt at taking sides against Remus by helping James and Sirius to win the bet, but he pushed the feelings aside as James began chatting about the list. 

* * *

"He's going to help us," James crowed to Sirius an hour later after the rather vain animagus had finally emerged from the bathroom. 

"How'd you talk him into it?" Sirius asked as he tried to flatten his flyaway hair into something resembling its normal style. "And how can I get my hair to look like it's supposed to without using magic."

"You've been claiming for years that it falls the way it does, naturally," James pointed out with a smirk. 

Sirius flushed at being caught out in the lie. "I might give it a little help with a spell or two," he muttered. "Just on days when it's really bad."

"Like every day of the week?" James suggested as he pointed to the hairbrush on the dresser. 

"So how _did_ you talk him round?" Sirius asked once the crisis concerning his hair had passed. 

"Bribery," James replied. "This is Wormtail we're talking about. You just have to know what buttons to push."

"And what's it going to cost us?" Sirius asked in a suspicious tone of voice. 

"Just a month of doing his Defence homework when we're back at Hogwarts."

"That's all?" 

"Yep!"

"Wow, you got him cheap." Sirius grinned and chuckled. "We'll teach Remus that we can do without magic!"

"Too right!"

* * *

Outside the door, Peter was listening intently. He'd only followed James up the stairs to see if Remus was awake yet. He'd planned on offering to make breakfast for the sleepy werewolf as a small way of making up for his betrayal. He'd not really intended to eavesdrop on his friends. 

Cheap, was he? Peter fumed as he listened to James and Sirius laughing at how easily he'd been won over to their side. "We'll see about that," he muttered as he headed back down the stairs, all thoughts of Remus forgotten. 

The list of muggle activities was still on the table and Peter scowled at it. Sirius and James had marked the various items with the day that they intended to tackle them on and Peter saw that ordering takeout by telephone had been marked for that night. 

"Well, let's see how they manage without my help," Peter mused as he crept into the living room. Carefully, and with as little noise as possible, Peter pushed the sideboard out from the wall to reveal the telephone socket. James and Sirius might have finally remembered what a telephone was. They might even have remembered how to operate it. But he very much doubted they'd have a clue what to do if he were to unplug the phone from the wall. After a final glance towards the door, Peter pulled the connection out of the socket and pushed the sideboard back into place. 

Then he turned back to the list once more, wondering what else he could do to teach James and Sirius a lesson.

* * *

A/N: Well at first I didn't see this story being any longer than three or four parts. However the more I write, the longer I think it might get. It won't be epic like Once in a Blue Moon or anything but it might be longer than I initially planned. If anyone wanting the fic to continue for a while has any ideas on muggle tasks for the boys feel free to let me know and I will try to include them if I can and, of course, credit anyone whose idea gets used. 


	3. Venturing Forth

Venturing Forth

"But why not?" Sirius whined, casting another look towards the window. The day was that of a typical British summer…after an initial ten minutes of sunshine, it was now pouring with rain.

Remus sighed and explained again. "Muggles manage without charms to repel the rain, so can you."

"But it's slinging it down!"

"Unless you're forfeiting the bet, then tough luck." Remus smirked and watched the indecision flicker over his friend's face as he looked out at the steady downpour again.

"We've got a couple of muggle umbrellas in the hall closet," Peter commented. "You can use them if you like."

"Thanks," James grinned at him and dashed to the closet, Sirius close on his heels.

A few moments later and the sounds of complaining were once again heard.

"I want _that _one!"

"I got it first."

"But this one's for a girl."

"They both work the same way."

"But this one's _pink _and has stupid looking kittens on it."

"If it keeps you dry, what does it matter?"

"Can't you swap?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to have the girly one."

"But neither do I?"

"Then I guess you'll get wet."

"It's not fair!"

Remus looked at Peter who was grinning widely at the argument. He smirked back. If girlishness was defined by whining then both of their friends should be carrying pink, kitten-covered umbrellas.

"Do you think they know how to open them?" Remus asked.

A moment later that question was answered by the sound of a cry of pain followed by James apologising. "I swear I didn't know it would do that when I pressed the button."

"Ruddy dangerous contraptions," Sirius muttered as he stalked back into the living room and threw the pink umbrella onto the sofa. "Moony, it's just one little charm…"

"No."

"You'd better hurry if you want to get the bus," Peter advised. "We're a bit out of the way here so they only come by once an hour."

"Guess you're getting wet then," James smirked, his own umbrella open and resting casually on his shoulder.

"You do know that's bad luck?" Peter asked, pointing at the umbrella.

"What is?"

"Putting an umbrella up in the house."

"It is?" James squeaked, dropping the umbrella and jumping away from it as though it had suddenly sprouted fangs.

"Guess we're both getting wet," Sirius commented, pulling his cloak off of the peg.

"Does that cloak have any warming charms on it?" Remus asked suspiciously.

"Er…"

"Muggle clothes only," Remus stated.

Sirius looked sulky but put the cloak back on the peg and took down an oversized jacket instead.

--xXx--

"This bet's going to be a doddle," Sirius commented as they walked down the road, keeping an eye open for the bus.

"Yeah," James agreed. "But it'll be nice when we can use magic again."

"Here's the bus," Sirius said, pointing to the muggle bus coming up behind them.

"How do muggles stop it without a wand?"

"Dunno."

"Perhaps we should wave or something?"

Sirius nodded and began waving as soon as he thought the bus was close enough that the driver would see him. Having travelled on the Knight Bus on several occasions, he wasn't too worried that the bus wasn't slowing down as it approached him. He knew that muggle buses must have brakes, just like the Knight Bus.

He was still waving at the bus, leaning into the road, when he realised that it wasn't stopping at all. Thankfully James was rather more observant and pulled him back just in the nick of time.

"How rude!" Sirius exclaimed, making a particularly rude gesture of his own towards the back of the bus.

"How far did Wormtail say it was to the shopping centre?"

"A couple of miles."

James looked back towards the house and wondered whether it might be better to put off the shopping trip until a sunny day. Then he caught a glimpse of Remus and Peter watching them from the vantage point of an upstairs window. He didn't need to be in the room with them to be able to tell that they were both laughing uproariously at what they'd just seen.

"Let's start walking," James stated, walking determinedly down the road, not waiting to see if Sirius was following after him.

They had been walking for about five minutes when they saw a second muggle bus, this one going in the opposite direction. Sirius scowled at the contraption and kicked a stone out of his way. He wasn't looking when the bus pulled up on the other side of the road.

"Looks like they do stop sometimes," James commented. Sirius looked up to see a couple of women stepping off the bus and an elderly man climbing aboard. A minute later and the bus began moving again, revealing the small brick shelter with the words 'BUS STOP' painted on the side.

"They only stop in certain places," Sirius exclaimed as realisation dawned.

"You do know we've passed two of those shelters since we left the house?" James asked. "The first one before we even saw the bus coming?"

"No wonder they were laughing at us."

"We might as well keep walking," James muttered. "Wormtail said the buses were every hour and the rain seems to be abating a bit anyway."

Sirius nodded and they continued on their way.

"Wormtail was right about the shopping centre," James said as they arrived in the nearby town. The shopping centre was clearly sign posted and it wasn't long before they were inside and consulting their shopping list.

"Let's get the food first, then have a look round for other stuff," Sirius suggested. "I wouldn't mind looking for some muggle music like Wormtail's got."

James nodded and they made their way towards the supermarket.

"This is so easy," Sirius crowed as they filled up their trolley with items from their list and anything else that happened to catch their eyes.

"You've got the easy bit," James complained.

"You were the one who wanted to push the trolley."

"I didn't know the thing would have a mind of its own."

"It's just a bit of a dodgy wheel."

"Then how about you push it for a bit?"

"Can't, I've got the list."

"You could pass me the list."

"Nah, I'm enjoying this."

James scowled as Sirius threw a tub of chocolate chip ice cream into the trolley, breaking the eggs in the process.

"Sirius!" James glared at the dark-haired boy, who at least had the sense to look sheepish.

"Did we really need those?" Sirius asked as he tossed the broken eggs onto the nearest shelf and they hurried away from the mess they'd made on the floor.

"Don't know," James shrugged. "I can't remember what stuff on the list was from the recipe book and what we just added because we wanted to."

"Never mind, we can always make something else instead."

"You think we've got enough money for all this stuff?" James asked.

"You got Wormtail to give you some muggle money, didn't you?"

"Yeah, he came through for us with that one. Slipped it to me while Remus was in the bathroom."

"How much do we have?"

"He said it's a couple of hundred dollars, though I didn't have time to count it before Remus came back."

"Should be more than enough," Sirius said as he tried to mentally add up the price of the goods in their trolley. "Let's go pay."

After only two wrong turns down the aisles, the boys finally found the checkout and began piling their goods onto the conveyor.

James rolled his eyes as Sirius began flirting outrageously with the checkout girl.

"That'll be forty eight pounds and ninety seven and a half pence, please," she said with a smile.

"Here you go," James said as he handed her two notes marked twenty, and one marked ten.

"Er…what's this?" the girl asked as she looked closely at the first of the notes.

"That should be fifty," James said.

"These are US dollars."

"Huh?"

"US dollars, they're not legal tender in England."

"But, it's muggle money," James said, barely able to understand a word the girl was saying.

"Muggle?"

"Your money, er…" He looked at Sirius pleadingly, unfortunately the other boy looked as confused as he was.

"Look," the girl said as she passed the notes back over. "This is American money, you can't spend it here. You need to get it exchanged."

"But you don't accept galleons."

"Galleons?" The girl now looked as confused as the two boys.

"Our money is galleons, sickles and knuts," Sirius explained. "We thought this was your money."

"This is a joke, right?" the girl asked, her face breaking into a wide grin. "This is like that old Candid Camera show. Where's it hidden?"

James and Sirius watched as the girl started looking wildly around the supermarket, apparently looking for a camera.

"Look," Sirius said, bringing the girl's attention back to him. "We just want to buy our shopping. If this money isn't any good, just tell us what is…please?"

The girl looked a little crestfallen at the news that she wasn't going to be seen on television. She sighed and pulled out some money. "We use pounds and pence, though why you don't know this when you're clearly English is a mystery to me. You need to get it exchanged."

James looked closely at the coins. "So when could we use these?" He waved the notes in front of her again.

"In America," replied the girl, impatience now very evident in her tone.

"Guess Wormtail isn't as up on muggle money as he'd like us to think," Sirius commented. "How about I wait here and you go find a bank to exchange it?"

"How about I wait here and you find a bank?" James argued.

"How about you both get out the way of actual paying customers," a rather irate customer directly behind them in the queue chimed in.

The boys glared at the customer but moved out the way, their trolley of goods being taken aside by an assistant who pointed them towards the door.

"Well, that was a waste of an hour," James muttered. "Any ideas where the nearest bank is?"

"Do muggle banks even exchange different sorts of money?"

"Don't know."

"Why can't they just have one sort of money, like we do?"

"Don't know."

"Do you know _anything_?"

"I know we're getting stared at by that bloke with 'SECURITY' written on his jacket."

James and Sirius both looked at the guard, who was now eyeing them very suspiciously, before making a rapid exit from the area.

* * *

A/N: Confession time now - how many of you initially complained/grumbled to yourself when you read the word dollars? Perhaps thinking this drippy author doesn't know what currency the English use.

On an unrelated note - although this isn't a slash story, I know a few of the readers of this story ship the puppies and would like to invite you to my new puppy shippers forum. Everyone is welcome.


	4. Is there anybody there?

A/N:  No real excuse for the delay, just too many fics and too little time.  I apologise and hope that the next update won't be as long in coming.

Is there anybody there?

"Six hours," Remus commented as two rather damp marauders staggered in the door. "I guess that makes it a tie."

"Makes what a tie?" James asked he tried to duck out of the way of Sirius, who was shaking the rainwater out of his hair in a very dog-like manner.

"I guessed five hours on how long you'd be, Wormtail thought seven," Remus explained with a smirk.

"Did you have to walk back as well?" Peter asked with a barely concealed grin of his own.

"No, we got a ride in a taxi," Sirius crowed.

"And came back via Hogsmeade?" Remus asked innocently.

"Oh, ha ha," James replied. "So, we've now completed loads of our tasks."

"Two of your tasks," Remus amended. "Shopping and travelling by muggle methods."

"And tonight, we are cooking dinner the muggle way," Sirius declared.

"Maybe we could leave that until tomorrow," James interrupted, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. "I thought we could order food in tonight, we deserve a little relaxation."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "Good idea."

"Are you going to make the call, or am I?" James asked, trying unsuccessfully to cover up his eagerness to pass the task onto Sirius.

"Oh, you can do it," Sirius replied with a wave of his hand towards the phone.

Remus smirked at Peter. "At least he remembers what the phone is," he commented as the two boys continued to argue over who should make the call.

"Why don't you toss a coin for it?" Peter suggested.

James nodded and pulled a bunch of coins from his pocket. "That reminds me," he said, turning to Peter with a glare. "You gave us the wrong money this morning."

"You gave them money?" Remus asked.

"He gave us American money," James clarified. "Which can't be spent in England. If it wasn't for some old dear outside the muggle shops we wouldn't have been able to buy anything."

"You took money from a pensioner?" Remus asked with a fair degree of shock.

"'Course not," James replied. "She helped us get it exchanged though. We even paid her for the help she gave us."

"How much?" Peter asked curiously.

"Only fifty pounds," Sirius said. "She said that was a fair amount."

"Fifty _pounds_?" Peter squawked.

Sirius nodded. "Why are you saying it like that?" he asked. "Is it a lot?"

"I told you it was too much," James pointed out. "The shopping was forty eight pounds and we had loads."

Sirius mumbled something that sounded rather uncomplimentary and Remus stepped in before they started squabbling in earnest. "Didn't you read the writing on the money?" he asked.

"I read the numbers on it," James muttered. He turned back to Peter with a glare. "What do you have American money for anyway?"

"Must have been from my parents' holiday during term time," Peter replied with a shrug. "I was only trying to help."

"'Course you were, mate," Sirius replied. "Just because Prongs is an idiot, it's not your fault."

"Hey!" James turned to glare at Sirius. "I didn't see you noticing the money was wrong either."

"You were in charge of the money," Sirius replied with a smirk. "There wasn't anything wrong with the shopping itself…the part of the task I was in charge of."

"It was a joint effort. I pushed that stupid metal contraption all around the store. All you did was put things into it."

"I had to find the things first."

"We were walking up and down the aisles for hours, we passed the milk twice before you spotted it."

"I was concentrating on other things."

"Yeah, like the dark-haired girl at the bakery counter."

Sirius huffed and turned back to the telephone. "What are we going to order anyway?"

"The menus are pinned to the board in the kitchen," Peter told them.

"Thanks," James said, giving Peter a not entirely hidden wink as he ducked into the kitchen, Sirius close at his heels.

"What was that wink for?" Remus asked curiously.

"For telling them where the menus are, I guess," Peter replied with a shrug.

"Do you have anything ready made in case they muck this up?" Remus asked. "I don't fancy starving just because that pair are useless with muggle things."

"There are some muggle crisps in the cupboard but not much else."

Remus nodded as Sirius and James came back into the room, various menus in their hands.

"Won't it take ages to get here from China?" James said as he perused the menu. "Muggles can't magic it over here like we can. Where's that menu for?"

"Italy," Sirius replied. "That'll take ages too."

"I quite fancy pizza," Remus commented.

"What's pizza?" Sirius asked as he looked for it on the menu.

"Delicious," Peter replied. "Why don't you order a couple and we can have a choice of toppings?"

Sirius nodded, appearing thankful that the choice was taken out of his hands. He walked over to the phone and gave it a look that was blatantly suspicious.

Peter turned to Remus and whispered into his ear. "Should I tell them that the number is on the menu?"

Remus nodded. "We'll never eat tonight if you don't."

"The phone number's on the menu," he called across to Sirius.

"I'd have found it myself," Sirius muttered as he turned to the phone, dialled two digits and waited.

Remus raised an eyebrow towards Peter, who shrugged with confusion.

"Is that it?" James asked.

"That's the number beside the large cheese and tomato topping pizza," Sirius said. "Do I just wait a minute and then put in the number for the ham and pineapple?"

Remus snorted and pulled a cushion over his face to hide his laughter.

Sirius looked at him briefly before turning to James. "I've done something wrong," he said in a loud whisper.

James was still looking at the menu. "How can you tell?"

"Because Moony's about to wet himself laughing," Sirius muttered.

"Just put the number in," James said. "Hey, it says here that if the order isn't with us in thirty minutes then we get it free. It'll take longer than thirty minutes to get here from Italy. We could eat this way every night and get free meals all the time we're here."

Remus chewed on the edge of the cushion in an effort to contain his mirth. Peter had escaped to the kitchen on the pretext of getting a drink, but everyone could hear him giggling and hiccuping through the door.

"Let me see this," James insisted as he pulled the menu out of Sirius's hand in order to look at it properly. "If muggles can do it, it can't be that difficult."

Remus watched as James quickly skimmed the menu and eventually realised that Sirius had been dialling the item number on the menu instead of the phone number. "This is the number you need to dial," he said, pointing to the number in question.

"What about the bit in brackets?" Sirius asked.

"Dunno, put it in anyway, just in case."

Sirius nodded and dialled the number.

"Is it working?" James asked a moment later.

Sirius shrugged. "I can't hear anything."

Remus, suspecting that they had missed a digit out of the number suggested they redial, but the two boys at the phone glared at him huffily. "We can manage," Sirius said with a sniff. "Ah, hello there. Yes, we'd like to place an order for two large pizzas."

"Are you sure we can eat that much?" Remus asked. "Cold pizza is pretty revolting, so it won't keep for tomorrow."

"Who's placing the order?" Sirius asked.

"You are," Remus answered meekly.

Sirius nodded and turned back to the phone. "Two large pizzas, numbers 14 and 17 from your menu. Thank you."

Remus watched as Sirius hung up the phone. He smirked across at the two boys. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the pizza to arrive," he said with a grin. "It kind of helps if you give them our address."

Sirius flushed and Remus collapsed into giggles again.

"I'm sure they can tell where we are from their end," James said. "It can't be that hard. If they wanted to know, they'd have asked."

"Asked?" Sirius whispered loudly. Remus wondered why he even bothered to lower his voice; he seemed to be incapable of speaking quietly.

"The bloke or bird in the other end of the phone would have asked you where we are if they needed to know," James pointed out.

"Um."

"What?"

"Er."

"For Merlin's sake, spit it out!"

Sirius rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I couldn't hear anyone speaking in the telephone. I just gave them the details and hoped they could hear me."

Remus's giggles turned into full gales of laughter. "You mean you just…faked…the…call?" he gasped out.

"They might have been able to hear me," Sirius insisted.

"I doubt it," Remus snickered. "Why don't you do what I suggested before and dial it again. Did you hear it ringing?"

"Ringing?"

"The phone. Did you hear it ringing at the other end?"

"How can I hear what is happening at the pizza place?" Sirius asked with confusion. "We're not there, we're here. If we were there we could just get a pizza and bring it home instead of using this contraption to get it sent here."

Remus buried his head in the cushion once more. This was just too easy.

Finally, Remus recovered himself long enough to explain the way the telephone worked again. "Do you hear a dial tone?" he asked after Sirius had picked up the receiver once more.

Sirius shook his head. "I don't hear anything."

Remus frowned and walked over to the phone. "Let me hear?" he ordered, holding his hand out for the receiver. Sirius looked reluctant to hand it over, but finally relented enough to hold the handset up to Remus's ear. "There's no dial tone," he said, trying to step past Sirius to look at the phone itself.

A few minutes of fiddling with the phone produced no results and eventually Remus checked the wires. "It's unplugged," he said as he pulled the cord out from behind the sideboard.

"Is that important?" James asked.

Remus rolled his eyes as he dragged the sideboard away from the wall and plugged the phone back in. "Try it now," he suggested.

Sirius picked up the receiver again and gave a very unmanly squeal when he heard the dial tone. "There's this weird sound," he said.

"Really?" Remus asked in mock surprise. "Do you think you can take it from here?"

"Of course," Sirius replied, snatching the menu back from James and dialling the number once more.

"Is it ringing?" James asked, leaning his head closer to Sirius so that he could try to listen in. Sirius nodded and pushed James away.

A moment later Sirius made a sound of triumph. "I can hear someone speaking!" he exclaimed. "It's like they're right here in the room. Wow!"

"What are they saying?" James asked as he tried to pull the receiver from Sirius's hand.

"Something about Mario's pizza. We don't want Mario's pizza though, we want ours."

Remus snickered from his seat on the sofa. Peter, who had returned to the room whilst Remus was getting the phone working began to laugh again. "That's the name of the pizza place," he told them. "They're introducing themselves so you know if you have the right number."

"Oh." Sirius flushed a little. "Hello Mr Mario. This is Sirius Black of London here. I'm here with James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. We're all staying with Peter in his parents' holiday cottage. What?" Sirius looked confused for a moment. "I'm introducing myself and my friends…yes we want to order some food…okay…"

Sirius seemed a little put out by having his introductions and explanations cut short but wasted no time in giving the details for the order, this time remembering to give the address for delivery.

"When do we pay for the food?" he asked after he had hung up the phone.

"We pay the person who delivers it," Remus explained. "Thankfully Wormtail didn't give you all the funds this morning, so we have plenty to pay the delivery boy."

"Unless they take longer than thirty minutes," James crowed. "There's no way they can deliver from Italy that quickly."

Remus shook his head and exchanged an amused look with Peter. Their friends truly had no clue at all.

Twenty five minutes later the doorbell rang.

"That'll be the pizza," Peter said, turning to Sirius and James. "Do you want to get the door and pay for it?"

"It can't be that," James said. "They can't have got here from Italy so quickly."

Nevertheless, James and Sirius went to answer the door. Outside on the drive was a small moped and the delivery boy was on the step with two large pizzas. "You ordered two pizzas?" the youth asked.

Sirius nodded. "How did you get here so fast?"

"We aim to please," the youth said with a smile. "And we rarely have to give our food away."

Sirius pointed at the moped. "You came on that?"

"Sure did," the youth said as James fumbled with the money.

Sirius looked impressed, and were it not for the other deliveries the youth had to make, he would have proceeded to engage him in a lengthy discussion about the moped in an effort to discover how he had travelled to England from Italy so quickly.

"How is it they missed the address on the menu?" Peter whispered.

Remus smirked back at him. "How is it they manage to get through life without knowing anything about muggles?" he replied.

They were still laughing when James and Sirius opened the pizza boxes and the delicious aroma rose from the contents.

At least they weren't going to starve…at least not yet.


	5. The Traitor Revealed

_AN: Um, so what can I say to excuse the lack of updates on this for something like four years? Not much I can say, other than it was already long overdue for an update when I got my first publishing contract a little over two years ago and after that there was just no time. I am using NaNoWriMo this year to go rebel and get a lot of unfinished projects completed, including this one and the other Harry Potter fanfics that are still unfinished. I always hate running across unfinished stories and am truly sorry that mine have been left for so long without being updated and completed. I am hoping that by the end of November this will be remedied._

_Oh, and in the interests of not keeping you all waiting for even longer, this is unbeta'd so please excuse any typos and the usual grammar errors that sneak into my work._

The Traitor Revealed

Remus was not a morning person, and all the other marauders knew that. Therefore, it was something of a surprise for him to be woken up at the crack of dawn by the sound of someone swearing loudly in the neighbouring room.

"Just fold it!" James ordered.

"I'm trying to. It's got a mind of its own."

"You're doing it wrong."

"You could try helping."

"I am helping."

"By standing around telling me what to do?"

"I'm supervising."

"You're just bossing me about."

"Watch the lamp!"

Remus buried his head under the pillow as a crash in the next room told him that Sirius had not watched the lamp.

"That's my Mum's favourite lamp," Peter shouted.

"A quick reparo and she'll never notice the difference," Sirius replied. "She won't be back until after we've won the bet anyway."

"It was a gift from my Gran," Peter added miserably. "It's an antique."

Remus stumbled out of his bed, giving up on sleep since his friends seemed determined to make as much noise as possible.

The sight that greeted him in the next room was not what he was expecting. He had, of course, expected the room to be in a bit of a mess, but the disaster that he walked into was far worse than he had imagined.

Sirius was tangled up in the bed sheets, while James was now trying to lift up the mattress of the bed. At first he thought James was trying to tuck the sheet under the mattress, but the sheet was no longer on the bed at all. Half of it was wrapped around the bedside table and the rest was wrapped around Sirius.

Peter meanwhile was kneeling on the floor, picking up the various pieces of his mother's vase.

"If you think this counts as making the bed, you'd better try again," Remus told them, before rapidly backing out of the room and going in search of breakfast.

The clattering from the floor above finally came to an end and Sirius, James and Peter joined Remus in the kitchen a few minutes later.

Sirius, still dragging the tangled and clearly ripped sheets behind him glared at Remus. "You put a spell on the sheets, didn't you?" he accused. "That's why we can't get the bed made properly."

Remus groaned. "The sheets aren't jinxed to try to make you fail. You just aren't thinking things through before you try the tasks."

Peter deposited the broken lamp onto the table and looked pleadingly at Remus. "My mum's gonna kill me if we don't get this fixed."

Remus pulled out his wand and quickly restored the lamp.

"Oh, so it's all right for you to do magic," James grumbled. "We could have repaired it ourselves if we'd been allowed to use our wands."

Remus gave a long suffering sigh. "Repairing broken objects isn't on your list anyway. Making a bed – properly – is what you were supposed to be doing. Have you even managed it?"

"Er…" James looked at Sirius who suddenly found the floor tiles exceedingly fascinating. "Sort of."

"It doesn't count until you do it properly," Remus reminded him.

Sirius gave the bed a glare that Medusa would have been envious of. "Do we both have to make the bed?" he asked.

James sucked in his breath through his teeth and shook his head wildly. "You aren't going to get out of this one and leave it all to me."

"But…"

"No!" James interrupted. "You're going to do your share of this bet."

"But I'm not used to doing menial tasks like this. I'm sure I can do lots of stuff like muggles do, but I'm not a bleedin' maid."

"And I am?"

"Well, no, but…"

"Of for crying out loud," Remus shouted. "All you've got to do is make a bed and if you both work together it's a lot easier than one of you on your own. It's not like we're not asking you to scrub the toilets or anything. "

Peter, who had been trying to find a suitable place to put the repaired vase, where it would be safe from the antics of Prongs and Padfoot, looked up thoughtfully. "Actually, cleaning the bathroom, toilet included, sounds like a great idea for the list to me."

"You git!" Sirius shouted. "That's hardly helpful."

Remus frowned at his friends as they shot baleful looks at each other. "Helpful, Padfoot?" he asked quietly. "Why would Wormtail be being helpful?"

"Er…"

Remus folded his arms across his chest and waited for an explanation. James was the first one to crack.

"Wormtail said he'd help us in exchange for us doing his Defence homework for September," he admitted with a sheepish look.

"That was before Sirius said you'd got me cheap," Peter snapped.

"You were eavesdropping?"

"Not on purpose, though I'm glad I did."

Remus raised his hands to stop the arguing. "Okay enough! We're supposed to be friends and I don't want to waste the whole week arguing over this."

Sirius brightened up considerably. "Does that mean you forfeit?"

"Absolutely not," Remus replied firmly. "It means we need a slight change to the rules. Peter, no more sabotaging the others."

"I didn't do a lot to sabotage them anyway."

"I'm guessing you unplugged the phone," Remus said. "And I know you use muggle currency enough to know the difference between English and American money."

Sirius and James glared in unison at Peter, who didn't even try to look apologetic, merely muttering 'cheap' under his breath.

Remus turned to Sirius and James with a thoughtful expression. "And for trying to cheat at all by getting Peter to help you, I'm not only adding cleaning the toilets to the list, but I'm going to make it cleaning the whole house – top to bottom, cellar to attic."

"No!" Sirius shouted. "You can't do that."

"This is my one item for the day being added," Remus explained with a rather nasty smile.

"And what about Peter? He was the one helping us. What about making him clean the place with us?"

"Peter knows how clean the muggle way," Remus reminded them. "You know as well as I do you'll just make him do all the work."

"We wouldn't."

Remus raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Okay, we would," James admitted. "But you can't punish us and not him."

"It's not like I have actually helped you at all," Peter reminded them. "I hadn't done anything since I overheard you talking about me."

"Then you should be punished for sabotaging us," Sirius suggested.

Remus, still tired and cranky from his interrupted sleep had heard more than enough. "Sirius, give it a rest or _I'll _start sabotaging you myself, and I'll do a lot more than unplug a phone."

"You wouldn't cheat."

Remus took a step forward until he was toe to toe with Sirius. "You just woke me up at the crack of dawn with all this noise. You've done nothing but argue since I walked in here. And to top it all off, I've not even had my breakfast yet. Do you really want to push me?"

"No," Sirius squeaked, stepping back out of the way of Remus's wrath and tripping over the sheets that were still tangled round his feet, landing once again in a heap on the floor.

Remus left him to get to his feet and went downstairs in search of breakfast. He hoped his idiotic friends had at least picked up some eggs and bacon during their foray into the world of muggle supermarkets.

A brief glance through the fridge made it clear that the eggs had been forgotten. He had half a mind to tell them they had to do the shopping again, but he suspected they would still get it wrong and they'd probably use up all the money they had left, and if that happened they would no doubt end up at the beach at the end of the week regardless, because they'd have no money to pay to get into the museum at all.

o-x-o

James and Sirius stood in the living room, trying to decide which room to tackle first in what was sure to be a day long cleaning job.

"I say we do the worst room first and then leave the easier ones until later."

"I say we start easy and work our way up."

"Maybe we should do the room with the breakables in first so we don't accidentally damage something when we're tired later on."

"But if we do something wrong before we've got the hang of it we could break something expensive anyway."

"We could start at the top of the house and work our way down."

"I don't want to clean the attic first. How about we do that last and start in the cellar."

"I thought I saw some rats down there."

"That was Wormtail."

Remus shook his head silently as he read the morning paper. At the rate they were going they'd never decide which room to begin with. "How about you start in the kitchen by cleaning up the breakfast pots and washing down the counters?"

James and Sirius didn't seem to have anything to say to that and with a couple of shrugs they wandered into the kitchen.

"I think Moony's enjoying having us slaving away far too much," Sirius complained. "I bet _he_ doesn't know how to do the stupid pots."

"Probably has his mum do them when he's at home," James agreed.

Remus followed after them and leaned on the door jamb. "Actually I've been washing pots like muggles since I was a kid. My mum and dad have always had me doing jobs round the house to earn my pocket money."

"You have to work for your pocket money?" James looked aghast at the very idea.

"Yep. Washing pots, dusting, hoovering, weeding the garden."

Sirius shot a look at the list Remus had compiled. "You can't add anything else onto the list today," he reminded him.

Remus laughed. "You think I'd let you two lunatics loose in Mr and Mrs Pettigrew's lovely garden. Plants can't be repaired like a broken vase if you destroy those."

"You don't have much faith in us, do you Moony?" James said.

"Not a jot." Remus grinned wickedly. "Now how about you hurry up and do the pots so you can get started on the rest of the house."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Oh yes." Remus pointed at the sink. "I can only see one set of marigolds there, so you'll have to decide between you which gets to protect their delicate hands from the evil old water with the gloves."

Sirius, moving as fast as lightning, grabbed the gloves before James had even turned around. "I'll wash and you can dry and put the pots away."

"But that means you're doing one task and I'm doing two!"

Remus groaned. It was going to be a very long day.


	6. The Name's Black, Sirius Black

_AN: Chapters are like buses. You wait forever for one and then two come at once. _

The Name's Black, Sirius Black

Two hours after Sirius and James had started to clean the house Remus started to feel guilty. He was no longer suffering from early morning crankiness and it was clear his friends were having no fun at all. This was supposed to be a holiday, and they were doing more work than when they were at school. Admittedly they were not doing very well with the work. They had broken a plate and chipped a couple of mugs whilst doing the pots and their antics with the soapy water had caused a bigger mess on the floor of the kitchen than had already been there.

With his guilty conscience screaming in his ears, Remus ducked into various rooms and tidied things up a little, just so things weren't quite so bad and the boys wouldn't be spending the whole day cleaning and scrubbing the house from top to bottom. Peter caught him magically straightening up the attic, the room that needed the most work to make it clean and presentable. Remus gave a sheepish smile. It wasn't like James and Sirius would know he had helped; they had never set foot in the attic.

Even with Remus's secret help, James and Sirius were looking rather the worse for wear by lunchtime. James's hair looked as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Even Sirius, normally impeccably dressed, had torn a hole in his shirt and the knees of his trousers were looking worn and dusty.

Taking pity on them again, Remus rustled up some lunch for the four of them and when they sat at the table he broached the idea of maybe finding something fun to do for the afternoon.

"You just want to waste our time so that we lose the bet," Sirius grumbled.

"I do not!" Remus replied. "I just thought maybe you could split the cleaning up a bit instead of doing it all in one day. Maybe a room or two a day until the end of the week? Besides, there are other things on the list that are more fun than chores."

"There is?" James reached for the list and looked it over again. "I don't see anything fun here. It's all cleaning windows and cooking and stuff."

"What about the treating your friends to a trip to the cinema?" Remus pointed out. "See, right there."

"What's a cinema?" James asked, frowning as he tested out the strange word on his tongue. "Is it something fun, or are you just making up silly words to confuse us?"

Remus really despaired of his friends at times. "I already told you we weren't going to deliberately make you fail. If I'd made up the cinema then we would have."

"So, what _is_ a cinema?" Sirius asked. "It's not like the shopping centre is it?"

"No, but it's in that direction," Peter said. "I don't know what's playing there at the moment."

Remus went to fetch the muggle newspaper from the other room. "Looks like the film showing today is _The Man With the Golden Gun_. It's not a very new film but I think we can safely say none of us have seen it, so it doesn't really matter about that."

"The local cinema here never has the new films showing," Peter complained. "I've not seen that one but I saw one of the other Bond films a couple of years ago."

"Which one?"

"_You Only Live Twice_."

"No you don't," Sirius interrupted. "Muggles live once the same as the rest of us."

"And what's a gun?" James asked. "Are they always golden or do they come in other colours?"

"And what's a film?" Sirius added.

As the two purebloods rattled off their questions Remus rolled his eyes at Peter. Another glance at the paper showed the film was due to start in a little under two hours. He wondered whether they would see the whole film, or whether the inane questions would continue right up until the start time, assuming of course that Sirius and James had enough common sense between them to get them to the cinema in time for the start at all.

-o-x-o-

They finally made it to the old rundown cinema and joined the fairly short queue outside. James and Sirius continued with their questions as they waited to be let into the building, earning more than a couple of odd looks from other people standing in line.

When James and Sirius lined up to get popcorn and drinks Peter pulled Remus aside. "We'll get thrown out if they talk all through the movie."

"I'll make sure to tell them they have to stay quiet," Remus promised.

Peter gave him a doubtful look. "Does that ever work with those two?"

Remus had to admit Peter made a very good point. "One peep out of them and I'll shut them up with a spell."

"You brought your wand with you?"

"Yes, didn't you?"

"No. I didn't think I'd need it just to come here."

"Even knowing what that pair are like?"

Peter glanced over to where James was counting out the cost of the refreshments with single pennies, much to the annoyance of both the staff member and the people waiting in the queue behind him.

"Did you give them only coppers?" Remus asked.

"No."

"Then why aren't they paying with the larger coins and notes?"

"I think I heard Sirius saying to make sure they weren't short-changed after their encounter with the old dear who fleeced them during the currency exchange fiasco. They want to make sure they pay the exact amount."

"Because that's so much easier than simply counting the change," Remus said sarcastically.

"They really are hopeless with muggle money."

The hopeless pair eventually finished making their purchases and joined Remus and Peter. "Popcorn, sir," James said as he thrust the tub into Remus's hand.

"Is it salty or sweet?" Remus asked.

"Don't push it," James replied. "Now, where's this golden gun we're supposed to be looking at?"

Clearly the education of modern cinema Peter and Remus had tried to drum into them on the way had had no impact at all. "This way," Peter said. "The film should be starting about ten minutes.

"Where do you want to sit?" Peter asked. "Right at the back or in the middle?"

"Can't we sit at the front?" Sirius complained.

"The seats at the front aren't really any better," Peter replied as he led the way down the aisle.

"You mean like in the classroom?" James asked. "No one wants to sit in the front row."

"Something like that."

"We're not going to get a test are we?" Sirius suddenly asked. "I'm not doing tests in the holidays."

"This whole week is a test for you," Remus teased.

"Then why can't we sit at the front?"

"Just pick a seat," Remus told Peter. "Perhaps near the back would be better."

The only people on the back row were a couple of muggles who didn't seem to have any intention of watching the movie. Or if they were, they might not see much unless they intended to part lips some time soon.

Eventually they managed to find four seats together at about the halfway point.

"You do remember that you aren't allowed to talk once the film starts?" Remus reminded them.

"How will we know when it starts?" James asked.

"You'll see it start on the screen," Remus explained, pointing to the screen in question. "And the lights will go dim."

"The lights are already dim," Sirius pointed out.

"Dimmer then. And did you hear what I said about being quiet?"

"I'm not deaf."

"Just checking."

A few minutes later the lights went down and the commercials started to play on the big screen.

For about thirty seconds Sirius and James sat watching with their jaws hanging down and their eyes wide. An explosion on the screen caused them to jump and duck respectively.

Peter chuckled from the opposite end of the group and leaned forward to catch Remus's eye. This was going to be fun.

After the commercials and a rather boring cartoon had played the main feature began. Remus had to give them credit, they did manage to keep quiet for a little while. Fifteen minutes was rather a record for them, if you didn't count tests and exams at Hogwarts. But they weren't at Hogwarts and there was no Professor McGonagall glaring down at them if they were caught whispering. As threatening as Remus could be, his glares at them to keep quiet just didn't have the same effect. It seemed he would have to resort to magical means if he wanted to see the whole film without it being talked over or them being thrown out.

Slipping his wand out of his pocket he pointed it at James first of all and cast a quiet spell to silence him. Then he did the same to Sirius, who was in the middle of asking where he could purchase some gadget or other he had seen the secret agent using.

As soon as he realised what Remus had done he clambered over James to try to wrestle Remus's wand from him.

"Get back in your seat," Remus hissed. "You'll get us thrown out if you don't stop talking and making a noise."

Sirius ignored him and tried again to grasp for the wand, inadvertently kicking Peter in the arm at the same time.

"Do I have to put you into a full body bind?" Remus threatened.

He didn't need to hear Sirius to know what his reply was. He was easily able to read his lips as he said he wouldn't dare.

"Wanna bet?" Remus warned.

Something in his eyes must have told Sirius that Remus was serious about his threat and he moved back into his seat just as the usher approached them. She shone the torch in each of their faces. "Is there a problem here?"

"No, ma'am," Remus assured her as his friends shook their heads.

Once she was satisfied there wasn't going to be any trouble she returned to her duties, leaving the marauders to continue watching the film.

Sirius and James, despite their enforced muteness, still managed to make their awe of the muggle movie known, James in constant nudges to Remus's arm with his elbow, every time he wanted to make sure he knew he was impressed, and Sirius with some loud clapping each time Bond did something spectacular. A few other people were clapping as well, apparently spurred on by Sirius's claps, as Remus was sure this was not usual in cinemas, and it was only that which halted Remus from carrying out his threat of a full body bind.

After the movie was finished Remus removed the spell from his friends and they joined the rest of the public in leaving the cinema.

"Did you enjoy the movie?" Peter asked as they walked down the street.

"Yeah, though I thought Moony was a bit mean about silencing us," Sirius complained. "Other people were whispering during the film."

"Yeah, whispering," Remus pointed out. "You and James were talking so loudly it was annoying other people trying to watch the movie."

"No one said they were annoyed by us talking," Sirius argued.

"_I_ was annoyed by your talking," Remus replied easily. "I couldn't hear what was happening on the screen with you two nattering beside me."

"Can we go and eat?" James asked as he looked at the café over the road. "I'm starving."

"You ate nearly all the popcorn you bought for me and Peter," Remus reminded him. "How can you possibly be hungry?"

"I'm a growing boy."

"You think Lily will finally go out with you if you're as big as a horse?" Sirius teased.

"Git! I don't see girls lining up to go out with you either."

"I can get any girl I want," Sirius declared.

"Yeah, right," Remus chuckled. "Your pick up lines are even worse than the ones James uses."

Peter nodded his agreement. "I've just thought of what I'm going to add to the list for tomorrow."

"Yeah?" Remus turned to him with a question in his eyes. James and Sirius had looks of mutual horror on their faces.

"I think we should make them get dates with a couple of muggle girls."

"No!" James replied immediately. "I'm not going to cheat on Lily."

"You're not dating Lily," Sirius reminded him. "I'm sure she won't care if you see someone else."

"That's not the point."

"We'll lose the bet if you refuse to do this," Sirius complained. "It's just one little date. And let's face it, you need to go on at least one date before you die of old age."

James finally relented and after a bit of negotiating Remus and Peter agreed that they could get a head start on their date mission today, even though it wasn't technically being put onto the list until tomorrow because of their rule about adding only one challenge a day.

"I'll show you how it's done," Sirius said as he sauntered over to a nearby group of giggling girls.

Remus and the others watched him make his move.

"The name's Black, Sirius Black," Sirius said with what was possibly the worst James Bond impersonation of all time.

The giggling girls collapsed into fits of laughter as Sirius looked back at his friends with confusion. Eventually he tired of being laughed at and re-joined his friends.

"I don't understand," he said. "It worked for that Bond bloke."

Remus laughed loudly. "Sirius, you are no James Bond."

"I never said I was."

"Movies aren't real," Peter added. "If you're going to get a date with a muggle girl, you'll have to do better than that."

Sirius looked over his shoulder at the group of girls. "Maybe we'll leave the date with a muggle girl until tomorrow after all."


	7. Muggle Machinery and Wizards

_AN: I am on a roll this weekend. For those who follow my Too Much Trouble story, no I have not forgotten that this one is also long overdue for an update and completion. I hope to get to that one later in the month.  
_

Muggle Machinery and Wizards Should Never Mix

The room James and Sirius were sharing looked as though a cyclone had swept through it.

Peter and Remus stood in the doorway looking at their two friends as items of clothing flew around the room.

"What about your blue shirt?" Sirius asked as he pointed to the item which was hanging off the end of the bed.

"It's got tomato sauce on it."

It was the next morning and James and Sirius were trying to find clean clothes to wear so they could truly begin their mission to get dates for the barbecue they had decided to host later in the week.

Unfortunately, thanks partly to their efforts at cleaning the house, and part due to general sloppiness and laziness, they had apparently run out of clean clothes.

Sirius turned to glare at Remus and Peter. "Just one little spell to clean an outfit?" he begged. "How are we supposed to succeed in getting dates if we look like we can't even clean our clothes?"

Remus snorted. "You could always try something new," he suggested. "Like—oh I don't know—cleaning your clothes perhaps."

"But I need my wand to clean them." Sirius stamped his foot in a display of childishness that Remus privately thought was not going to help his argument.

"Muggles don't need wands to clean their clothes," Peter reminded him. "And they don't all walk round with dirty clothes on."

"Washing machines!" James suddenly shouted. "They use washing machines, don't they?"

"Hallelujah," Remus declared. "It looks like you actually learned something during the last four years of Muggle Studies after all."

"We learned plenty in Muggles Studies," James replied with an affronted sniff. "But since we don't have a washing machine it's only fair you let us use magic to clean our clothes."

Peter grinned wickedly. "There's a washing machine set up in the cellar," he said.

"What do you have a washing machine for?" Sirius asked. "You use magic to clean your clothes, I've seen you."

"Not everyone in my family can do that," Peter reminded him. "Besides, the washing machine isn't so bad really."

Sirius nodded firmly. "Okay, lead the way."

"You expect me to tell you what the washing machine looks like?" Peter asked with a giggle.

Remus chuckled beside him. "We probably should tell them where it is. Otherwise they might put their clothes in the oven or something."

"I know what the oven looks like," James told him as he started gathering up items of clothing by the armful.

Remus and Peter led the way down to the cellar, James and Sirius leaving a trail of socks and other items of clothing in their wake.

Remus helpfully pointed out to the boys which of the machines was the washing machine while Peter showed them the cupboard containing the washing powder.

James and Sirius nodded knowingly.

"I think we can take it from here," James said as he and Sirius shoved all their clothes into the washing machine.

"I think you might have to split that into more than one load," Remus suggested when it was clear that they intended to get as much stuff inside the machine as was humanly possible.

"You should separate your colours from your whites as well," Peter added.

"What for?" Sirius asked. "You're just trying to make us waste more time so we don't get the other things on the list done."

Peter raised his hands in surrender. "Suit yourself. But don't say we didn't warn you."

Remus shook his head at his friends' stubbornness and walked back up the stairs, Peter following at his heels.

"This way," Peter whispered when they reached the top of the stairs."

"Huh?"

Peter put his fingers to his lips and pointed to a small vent near the base of the wall. "You can hear everything in the cellar through this," he whispered.

Remus grinned and the two of them crouched down to listen to their two friends as they began their first attempt at using a muggle washing machine.

"Maybe we should do the colours separately," James said.

"I've only got one green shirt. If we do every colour on its own, it'll take all week."

"But what if something goes wrong?"

"What can possibly go wrong?"

"I don't know."

"If muggles can do it, it can't be that difficult."

James was quiet for a moment or two. "Okay, we won't separate the colours up. But even if we don't do that, we can't fit everything into the machine at once."

"Let's do the little stuff first," Sirius suggested. "That way if something does go wrong it won't matter as much."

"_If_ something goes wrong," Remus whispered to Peter. "What's the betting they end up turning all their whites pink or something?"

"I think it's a definite something is going to go wrong," Peter replied. "I just hope they don't break the washing machine itself. My mum will kill me if they wreck it."

"We can always repair it with magic."

"I don't know," Peter said worriedly. "Dad says that muggle machines like cookers and washing machines aren't that easy to fix with magic. Too many small parts and things that can go wrong that you can't even see."

"Better keep a close eye on Padfoot and Prongs then, hadn't we?" Remus said.

In the cellar, James and Sirius were still arguing about what to put into the washing machine first. Remus and Peter sat quietly at the top of the stairs watching their friends, who had not noticed their return to observe.

"I can't close the lid," James said as he climbed onto the top of the machine, apparently intending to sit on the lid until he forced it close.

"You can't close it yet," Sirius said as he grabbed the box of washing powder. "We need to put the magic powder in first."

James hopped back down and Sirius opened the lid up again. "What's this doing in here?" he asked as he pulled out a large brown teddy bear.

"I thought Ted was a bit mucky and could do with a clean too."

"I thought you'd left him at home?"

"I never go anywhere without Ted."

Peter looked at Remus quizzically. "Ted?" he mouthed.

Remus was trying not to laugh. He had seen Ted a time or two at Hogwarts, but James kept his teddy bear very well hidden. He wasn't surprised that Peter had never noticed the toy buried in James's trunk. He had only caught a glimpse of it himself on the rare occasions James wasn't quite quick enough to hide it.

"You can't put a toy in the washing machine," Sirius was saying. "It's for washing clothes."

"But Ted needs cleaning!"

"Then you can clean him with your wand at the end of the week."

James looked sulky but took Ted off of Sirius and put him to one side. "How am I going to sneak him back upstairs again?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Can we get back to what is important here?" He gave James a stern look. "Is there anything else stupid in here I should know about?" he asked.

"Ted isn't stupid!"

"Anything else that isn't clothes then?"

"No."

Sirius took him at his word and poured what appeared to be half the box of washing powder into the machine.

Remus shook his head. Sirius obviously hadn't read the instructions, or if he had, he'd chosen to ignore them. They were going to flood the place with bubbles if they weren't careful.

Peter looked torn between going down to intervene and letting the course of events play out. Either way it was going to be interesting to see what happened when the washing machine got going.

Remus heard the telling sound of something being wrong with the washing machine several minutes before Sirius and James spotted something out of the ordinary. In their defence, the purebloods had no idea what a washing machine should sound like and had practically jumped out of their skin when they had first switched it on.

The machine was shaking in its spot against the wall so violently that it was moving out into the middle of the floor.

James was the first to realise the machine had moved away from the wall, when it bumped into the back of him. He squealed like a ten year old girl and spun round.

"It's got a mind of its own!" he yelled.

"My mum's gonna kill me," Peter moaned as James backed away from the washing machine.

Sirius decided to try another tactic, that of grabbing anything that was to hand and throwing it at the washing machine. The first missile was the half empty box of washing powder. The contents flew from the box as it sailed across the room, liberally covering James in the fine white powder.

James started to sneeze as the powder got up his nose. "Sirius, make it stop."

Sirius grabbed things from the cellar shelves at random and flung them at the washing machine.

Remus pulled out his wand ready to step in and take control of the rapidly escalating situation. Peter stood at his side, his own wand at the ready.

"Don't let them throw any of my dad's wine bottles," Peter whispered. "He's been collecting them for years and it's more than my life is worth to even breathe on them."

Thankfully Sirius was nowhere near the wine cabinet. He quickly realised that throwing things at the machine was having no affect whatsoever on the progression of the washing machine towards them.

"Let's push it back towards the wall," Sirius decided. He pulled a reluctant James towards the washing machine and they tried to ease it back into position.

Unfortunately the machine was heavier than they realised and the overuse of the washing powder was now causing the machine to spit out bubbles from the lid, which they had not fastened down properly. The slippery surface was not ideal for the two wizards to get a grip on as they tried to take back control of the situation.

"Maybe we should help them," Peter suggested quietly. He was clearly worried that the idiots would do something to cause irreparable damage to his mum's washing machine. Remus suspected he was probably right about that.

Before they could step down into the cellar the machine started coughing up bubbles at an alarming rate. They ran down the side of the machine and covered both Sirius and James.

James, who had been unfortunately open-mouthed at precisely the wrong time, found himself with a mouthful of soapy bubbles and he began to cough and splutter as he swallowed the vile suds.

"You aren't supposed to eat them," Sirius pointed out.

Remus suspected James's reply was something on the lines of 'I know that' but he could barely make out a word above the clanging and hissing of the washing machine.

"Need a hand, boys?" Remus said as he re-joined James and Sirius in the cellar. He could tell Sirius was dying to tell him no, and that they had it all in hand, but when it was so very obvious they had nothing under control at all, there was little he could do except nod mutely.

Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it at the washing machine. A quick spell caused the machine to halt and after one last splurge of bubbles it stopped completely.

"Having fun?" James asked as he scooped up a handful of soapsuds and threw them directly at Remus's face.

Remus spat out the suds and with a wave of his wand he sent his own sudsy missile towards James. James ducked and the suds hit Peter in the chest.

After that things turned into an all out war of soap suds with everyone throwing the bubbles at everyone else as they slid and slipped around the cellar.

Eventually they were too exhausted to do anything else other than lay there laughing.

"Just so you know," Remus said. "This does not count as doing the washing the muggle way."

"I suck at being a muggle," Sirius admitted. "They can't possibly be smarter than me, but I can't even do something stupidly simple like this."

"You could have tried reading the instructions on the box properly," Peter pointed out. "Honestly, what possessed you to put so much washing powder in the machine?"

"We were washing a lot of clothes."

"Yeah, too many for one load," Remus muttered. "On the plus side, I think you got so much stuff in there you might have avoided the problem of the colours running."

"The colours run as well as the machine?" James asked with horror.

Remus smacked him upside the head. "No, stupid. The colours blend together like paints. If you have a white shirt in the wash with a pair of red socks the whites turn pink."

"Why?"

"Just one of those things that muggles are trying to fix," Remus explained.

"Can you help us?" Sirius asked meekly. "Maybe show us how to do some of them and we can do the rest?"

"Are you admitting you need help?" Peter asked with surprise. "The great Sirius Black needs help from us halfbloods?"

"There's no need to crow," Sirius muttered. "Me and James didn't grow up round muggle stuff."

Remus sat up and gave Sirius a light punch to the arm. "It's not about what you grew up with. It's about taking notice of stuff. You both do Muggle Studies. You should know this stuff by now. This is every day stuff for muggles and I'm pretty sure you were learning about this type of thing in fourth year."

"That was ages ago," James complained. "It's different at NEWT level."

Remus snorted. "That's what worries me. If you can't even do the OWL stuff without screwing it up, there's no way you'll pass your NEWTs."

James and Sirius muttered something about not having to do practical stuff in Muggle Studies and they all set about putting the cellar to rights again.

Then Remus and Peter gave the others a lesson in how to do the washing with constant reminders that they were only going to show them this once, and the second load of washing would be done on their own.

Once they were done they sat down on the stairs and waited for the washing machine to finish the load.

"I can't believe we're only on the third day of this nightmare," Sirius complained. "I don't think I'm going to make it until the end of the week at this rate."

"Fourth day," James corrected. "I'm counting the day we made the bet as the first day."

Remus laughed at James's eagerness to get this week over with. Sirius looked at him pleadingly. "Okay, this is day four," he agreed.

"Thank goodness," Sirius breathed.

Remus smiled. He didn't admit that he was just as eager for the week to be over as James and Sirius were. They might use their magic far too much, but there was only so much damage control he and Peter could do. The longer they made the purebloods forego the use of magic the more chance there was of them doing something so stupid it would be impossible for Remus and Peter to repair the damage.

"So, what do you want to tackle next?" Peter asked.

Remus summoned the list from the kitchen and passed it to James and Sirius.

"Something easy," Sirius told James. "Pick something easy."

"None of these tasks are easy," James pointed out.

Sirius shot a look over his shoulder at Remus. "That's because Moony is an evil mastermind when it comes to bets."

Remus grinned widely. "Yep."


	8. The Great Flood

The Great Flood

After they had finally finished the washing, and after only a couple of mishaps with the clothesline hung everything out to dry, James and Sirius decided to wash up and try their hands at cleaning the bathroom.

"I'm going to take a bath," Sirius declared.

"A bubble bath?" Peter teased.

Sirius shot him a nasty look before sticking his nose in the air and bolting up the stairs.

"Have you got everything from the basement?" Remus asked James innocently.

"Yes," James replied easily.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Just wanting to make sure you haven't forgotten anything."

"I didn't."

"Only I thought I saw something down there that wasn't there before."

"You mean besides the blanket of bubbles?"

Remus's lip twitched. James clearly wasn't rising to the bait, even though he obviously knew what he was talking about. He decided a different tactic was in order.

"I think I'll go watch some telly with Wormtail," he said casually and went to join Peter in the living room.

About thirty seconds after he had sat down he saw James slipping back down into the cellar. Remus shot up from his seat and went to wait round the corner James would have to go round to get back upstairs to the bedroom.

James nearly dropped Ted as he turned the corner and saw Remus waiting there for him with a wide grin on his face.

"Got everything now?" Remus asked with a smirk.

"You knew, you git!" James accused.

Remus laughed and pulled out his wand. He tapped the bear on the head and instantly cleaned its mottled fur.

James gave Remus a sheepish smile as he passed him, the clean and sparkly Ted clutched tightly to his chest.

Remus returned to the living room and sat down beside Peter.

"Has he got his teddy bear?" Peter asked with a snicker.

"Yes."

"You know about James's bear?" Sirius suddenly asked from the doorway.

"Yeah," Remus admitted. "Saw it back in second year when he wasn't quick enough to hide it one morning."

"Why didn't anyone ever tell me about it?" Peter complained.

Sirius shrugged. "Most of us had some sort of cuddly toy with us back then. By the time we started leaving ours at home and James didn't we had enough to wind him up with over his crush on Lily and other stuff."

Remus agreed and he knew that he probably won't tease James about the bear again. At least not unless he really had to.

Sirius joined Remus and Peter on the sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table.

"Feet off the furniture," Peter barked, sounding scarily like his mother for a moment.

Remus chuckled as Sirius reacted instantaneously and put his feet on the floor.

"Why didn't you change your clothes?" Remus asked curiously. "These are still damp from the soapsuds."

"You're sitting on the sofa in wet clothes?" Peter leaned forward to look at Sirius before pointing at the doorway and ordering him out of the room.

"Didn't see the point of changing clothes before having a bath," Sirius explained.

"You haven't had a bath yet?"

"No. I'm waiting for the tub to fill up."

"Oh crap!" Remus and Peter bolted for the door with Sirius trailing after them with a confused look on his face.

That Sirius must have left the taps running on full before coming back downstairs was obvious as soon as they reached the pool of water on the landing at the top of the stairs.

"What happened?" Sirius asked with confusion.

"Muggle taps don't stop automatically when the bath gets full," Peter explained as he ran into the bathroom and turned the taps off.

It was probably too little too late. The tub was overflowing and the water had poured over the sides, covering the bathroom floor and stretching out into the hallway.

Remus pulled out his wand and started to clean up the water as Peter pulled the plug on the bath to let the water drain.

"Oops," Sirius said, his face bright red with embarrassment.

James joined them a moment later and squelched his way along the hall carpet, his nose scrunched up with distaste. "What happened?"

"We had a bit of an accident," Sirius said.

"_We_?" Remus echoed.

"_Bit_?" Peter added. "You practically flooded the entire house."

"There's no need to exaggerate," Sirius replied. "A bit of water never hurt anyone."

Remus mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath. He hadn't failed to notice that while he and Peter were cleaning up the mess Sirius had made, they were also partially completing Sirius and James's task of cleaning the bathroom. He glanced at the toilet and saw it was looking quite grim. At least that would take some cleaning by the purebloods. An evil thought took root in his mind and he smiled to himself as he finished mopping up the water with his wand.

Once the water was all cleaned up and everything had been dried out Remus dug around in the bathroom cabinet until he found what he was looking for.

He turned to Sirius and passed him the new toothbrush. "By the way, you'll need this for cleaning the toilet."

Sirius took the toothbrush from him and frowned at it. "But it's tiny."

"Yeah, but to win the bet you have to do things the muggle way, and they use brushes to clean the loos."

"They use the same things to clean the toilets as they do their teeth?" James asked doubtfully.

Remus shrugged. "Muggles do things oddly. You've been saying that for years. Why would this surprise you?"

James accepted his words without argument and grabbed a toothbrush of his own from the cupboard.

"Maybe we should clean the room before we clean ourselves," Sirius suggested. "I think this might be a messy job."

James nodded and got down on his knees near the toilet. "Cor, what a pong!" he groaned as he waved his hand in front of his face. "Who went last?"

All four boys looked at each other, none of them willing to take the blame for the state of the toilet.

Sirius joined James on his knees and pinched his nose tightly.

Remus had to leave the room or else he knew he'd burst out laughing and give it away that there were easier muggle ways of cleaning a toilet. Peter on the other hand stuck around to make sure James and Sirius had the toilet shining like new, with comments like 'you missed a bit here' and 'it still looks a bit mucky right at the back'.

Like it or not, Sirius and James were going to leave the bathroom absolutely spotless by the time Peter had finished supervising them.

-o-x-o-

Once Sirius and James were cleaned up and the bathroom was sparkling they all re-grouped in the living room.

"So, are you going out to the park now?" Peter asked, reminding Sirius and James of their intention to go find a couple of girls to ask out.

Sirius shook his head. "Still got nothing to wear until our clothes are dry."

"You'll need to iron your shirts as well," Remus told him.

"Iron?" James replied with a groan. "How do muggles ever have time for fun if they have to do all this just to get one clean outfit to wear?"

"They plan things better," Remus said. "They make sure they have clean clothes spare all the time, and don't just leave the washing until they have nothing left in the wardrobe."

Sirius looked out of the window to where their clothes were hanging out on the washing line. "How long do you think it'll take them to dry?" he asked.

Peter laughed. "Hours at this rate. Haven't you noticed it's raining?"

Sirius practically fell over his feet as he ran for the door, hoping to rescue his clothes before they were soaked through again. James hurried to help him, but it was clear they were too late and it had been raining now for some time.

It didn't help that in their hurry to rescue the garments they didn't take the basket out with them and a large number of items fell to the muddy ground.

"More washing," James complained. "It's just not fair. We did it right the first time."

Remus, once he had finished laughing took pity on them and pulled out his wand to clean and dry the muddy shirts and jeans.

"You could have ironed them too," Sirius moaned.

"I'm not doing all your tasks for you."

Sirius tried the puppy dog eyes thing, but Remus stood his ground.

-o-x-o-

Watching James and Sirius set up the ironing board provided nearly an hour of entertainment for Remus and Peter.

"It's upside down."

"You need to pull that bit."

"You're doing it wrong."

"Aaarrrgh!"

"What's your problem?"

"You trapped my fingers in it."

"You shouldn't have had your fingers in the way."

Remus gave up trying to contain his mirth within a few minutes.

Finally they had the ironing board set up, albeit upside down.

"It looks wrong," Sirius said as he gave one of the legs a kick. "Sturdy enough though."

James picked up one of his shirts and started to drape it over the legs of the ironing board. Remus wasn't quite sure what his thinking was on that one, but when he tore the fabric stretching it out he decided to step in and with Peter's help he turned the ironing board the correct way up.

"Why not try it now?" Remus suggested as Peter dropped the iron on the straight end of the board.

"You'll need to plug it in," Peter commented with a nod to the iron.

"I _know_," James said with a sniff that would have been much more effective if he hadn't then spent a good ten minutes trying to find somewhere to fit the plug into the ironing board itself.

"The wall socket!" Remus eventually shouted.

"You shouldn't have told them," Peter said. "I was enjoying this."

"Yeah, but we'll be here all day otherwise."

"I don't see you doing your own ironing," Sirius commented with a smirk. "The shirt you're wearing is pretty creased as well. Maybe you should do some of your own ironing to show us how it's done."

"I'm not the one who doesn't know how to iron," Remus replied.

Sirius folded his arms across his chest. "Then why don't you prove it," he declared. "Let's see you iron a shirt and then we'll do ours."

"You just want me to show you what to do," Remus said.

"Obviously," Sirius admitted. "The list never said anything about not having demonstrations. It just said we had to do tasks the muggle way. We'll still be doing this like muggles, but you will too."

"But it's so much more entertaining watching you two clowns muck things up all the time."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Again, you're stating the obvious here. We can see how funny the two of you are finding this. Now, how about your put your money where your mouth is and prove you can do what you're asking us to."

James was grinning widely, happy to have got out of making even more of an idiot out of himself than he already had. He stepped back from the ironing board and gestured for Remus to take his place.

Remus sighed and stepped forward. "Fine," he said as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I'll show you once and then you can copy me. But watch carefully because this is your one and only chance to see how muggles iron things."

Sirius and James did watch Remus carefully, but not quite carefully enough. They saw what he did with the iron and the starch, but it was clearly too much to take in all at once.

"It's as stiff as a board," James said as he lifted the over starched shirt up. There was not the tiniest bit of give in the material. He had used way more starch than was necessary and had not stuck to the collar and cuffs, instead choosing to spray it all over the entire shirt, leaving not an inch untouched.

Sirius's attempt at ironing wasn't much better. He learned from James's lesson about how much starch to use, but he had taken little notice of the settings on the iron and as such the iron was far too hot when he tried to iron one of his best silk shirts. The material burnt at the first contact of the iron and Sirius screamed in horror. He dropped the iron like a hot potato, right on Peter's foot.

"Moony!"

Remus sat on the sofa watching and wondering just how they were ever going to finish all the tasks on the list. At the rate they were going it would take them the rest of the week to complete even half of the jobs.


	9. Just a Little Something Extra

Just a little something extra

After the disasters of the fourth day of the bet, Remus wasn't sure what to expect on day five. He knew it wasn't that his friends were stupid, they just didn't think things through properly before they dove into whatever they were doing.

They had pretty much given up yesterday on their trip to the park. The cleaning and washing had taken up far too much of the day. On the bright side, they were getting through the list of tasks at a rather rapid pace. They were sloppy and lazy about some of the jobs, but they were at least attempting them all.

The last thing he had heard James and Sirius discussing before he had retired for the night was the meal they were apparently going to cook for the household the following day.

Remus and Peter had not specified on the list as to what the meal should be. Sirius and James were welcome to keep the task as simple as possible with a plain meal. From what he had heard of the discussions this was not going to happen. They were planning an early morning trip to the supermarket again, this time with a plan for how to do things properly. Then they were going to return and prepare what sounded like a feast big enough to rival the first nights at Hogwarts. Remus had tactfully suggested they stick to one course, but James was insistent they have three as a minimum.

Remus was keeping his fingers crossed that at the very least one of the courses was edible.

James and Sirius returned from their second shopping trip with even more bags of food than they had the first time around.

"You do realise we've now got enough food to last until Christmas?" Peter pointed out.

"Not the way you eat," James teased.

Remus started to pick through the bags to see what was inside. Sirius caught him being nosy and slapped his hands away.

"Did you spend all the money?" Remus asked worriedly. "What if there's an emergency or something?"

"We didn't spend all of it," James assured him. "There were loads of special offers and we took advantage of as many as we could."

"What sort of offers?" Peter asked.

James grinned widely and opened one of the bags. "Well, this was the best one. If you buy three boxes of cereal you get a fourth one free."

"We don't need any cereal," Peter said.

"But it was on offer!"

"You do know that most of these offers are just a con to make you buy more?" Remus pointed out. "Like when they show you the price for what two of something costs, while making it sound like it's cheaper, it's actually the exact amount of two of them bought separately."

Sirius pulled the ridiculously long receipt from the pocket of his jeans and scanned it quickly. "Moony's right. They weren't cheaper when you buy more than one at all."

"How much money do you have left?" Remus asked. "Please tell me you have enough to at least last us until the end of the holiday?"

James and Sirius shuffled their feet and looked anywhere but at Remus.

"I'll go floo my dad and ask him to send some muggle cash," Remus finally decided. "And I'm going to keep the money somewhere safe, in case we need it for an emergency."

"There's no need to do that," Sirius argued. "We won't need it. We're all set now with everything we need."

Peter dug into another of the bags. "What made you think we need a pack of nappies?"

James rubbed his nose. "We thought we'd be helpful and stock up things for your family when they return."

"But nappies?"

"For your little sister," Sirius explained.

"She's eight years old!"

"So?"

Peter pulled the bag of nappies out of the bag and threw them at Sirius's head. "Were you wearing nappies when you were eight?"

"Er… no."

"Then why do you think my sister would be?"

"Are you sure she's eight?"

"Yes!"

"She doesn't look eight."

"She looks older than eight. Everyone says so, including you when you met her earlier in the summer."

"Okay, enough chatter," James declared, clapping his hands to get everyone's attention. "It's time for the loiterers to depart and the chefs to get to work."

"Chefs?" Remus asked with a snort of laughter.

James pointed at the door and Remus and Peter left them to it.

James closed the door behind the others and turned to Sirius. "I don't know about you, but I'm sick of that pair laughing at us. This meal is going to be perfect, _or else_."

Sirius waved his hand airily. "You worry too much. This cooking lark is going to be a snap. I mean, let's face it, house elves can cook, so how hard can it be?"

James pulled a book down from the shelf on the kitchen wall. "This time we follow the instructions on _everything_."

Sirius took the book out of his hand and put it to one side. "I thought maybe we could give this meal our own special flair."

James yanked the book back and opened it to the recipe they had chosen the previous evening. "I'm not letting you muck this up for us. This is the fifth day of the bet and we won't have time to do this all over again if it goes wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong."

"As long as we follow the recipe."

"You worry too much."

"You don't worry enough."

Sirius huffed and hopped up onto the counter. "Fine, have it your way. We'll follow the stupid recipe, make the boring muggle meal and won't try to do something different and special for our best friends."

James cast a longing look at the recipe book. "What did you have in mind?" he asked. "Nothing too drastic?"

Sirius brightened and jumped back down from the counter. "This is going to be the perfect meal." He grabbed the book one final time and tossed it to one side. "I'm going to teach you things you'll never read in a stupid muggle book."

-o-x-o-

Remus and Peter were taking advantage of the sunshine to fly on their brooms on the garden, tossing a quaffle back and forth. They were also taking the occasional sneaky glimpse inside the kitchen to see how their friends were getting on with their cooking.

"Is James wearing my mum's apron?" Peter asked as swooped past the window.

"Yeah," Remus replied. "The one that says 'kiss the cook'. I don't know about you, but I think I'll pass on that one."

Peter chuckled. "Do you think they've figured out how to turn on the cooker yet?"

"No idea. But at least if they don't know how to turn it on then they won't be burning the house down."

Instead of laughing, Peter looked worried. Remus could tell he hadn't even considered the possibility that James and Sirius might cause some serious damage to the place.

"Your parents do have a smoke alarm, don't they?" Remus asked.

"I don't know. Do you think we need one?"

"James and Sirius are loose in your kitchen."

Peter started to turn a little green and he cast several nervous glances towards the window. "Do you think it's too late to persuade them to make a salad or something?"

"Let's not worry about them," Remus suggested. "We've got our wands if they do something really stupid."

An hour later James and Sirius came out into the back garden.

"Are you going to join us?" Remus called from high above the ground.

"That would be using magic," Sirius pointed out.

Remus swooped down in a large arc, ruffling the hair of both Sirius and James as he passed. "I think we can make an exception just this once. Go grab your brooms."

They did just that, clearly relishing the idea of doing some magic after their enforced abstinence.

With no neighbours nearby they made the most of the privacy and played for nearly an hour. They tossed the quaffle about until the moment Peter noticed smoke billowing from the kitchen window.

"What's gone wrong?" Sirius wailed as they raced towards the house.

"Did you follow the recipe to the letter?" Remus shouted.

"Not exactly."

"Then I think I can take a fairly good guess as to what went wrong."

"I told you we should have stuck to the instructions," James complained.

"You aren't blaming me for this," Sirius called back. "You could have insisted."

Remus hopped off his broom and with his wand in his hand he led the way into the kitchen.

"Maybe we should call the fire brigade," Peter suggested. "The muggle fire station is just down the road."

Remus pointed his wand at the cooker and turned it off. "No need for that. It's just smoke."

"That's okay," Sirius said in between coughs. "We were making smoked salmon for one of the courses."

Remus would have made a smart comment in response to that, but he was too busy trying not to choke on the smoke as he opened the window wider to let in some air.

"It's all gone wrong," Sirius said after the smoke had cleared and the ruined dinner was thrown out into the rubbish bin. "Muggle stuff is supposed to be easy. Why can't we do it?"

"We should have used the recipe," said James for what had to be the hundredth time since they spotted the smoke.

"You think?" Peter snapped.

"Hey," Remus stepped in, trying to act as peacemaker before someone said something they would later regret. "Not all muggles can cook fancy stuff. And you don't have to make anything fancy to win this bet. All you have to do is make something plain and simple by following a recipe. Just think of it like a Potions class. One little deviation from the instructions and ka-boom!"

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you Moony?" James teased.

Remus grinned. He knew his Potions skills were poor to say the least. "While you and Sirius always do fine, so you should do well with cooking like muggles as well. It's logical. If you can follow a Potions recipe, you can follow a muggle recipe."

"Except we've screwed up and the food is all ruined," Sirius pointed out. James arched an eyebrow at Sirius. "Fine, _I_ screwed up."

Remus reached for the discarded recipe book and flipped through the pages. "Okay, let's see what you can make with the ingredients you still have."

It didn't take long to find something simple for James and Sirius to make, and under the close supervision of Remus and Peter they got back to work on making dinner for the four of them.

-o-x-o-

"Is it good?" Sirius asked nervously as Remus took his first taste of the vegetable hotpot.

Remus had to admit it was delicious, even with the additional herbs Sirius had added to the recipe, despite James insisting they don't deviate this time.

"So we can cross another one off the list?" James asked hopefully.

"Yes," Remus agreed. "You've managed to cook a meal like a muggle… eventually."

Sirius ran to the list and crossed their latest task through.

"Maybe tomorrow we can dazzle our dates with our amazing culinary skills?" he said.

"Or maybe you can take your dates out to eat in a nice restaurant?" Peter suggested.

"They need to find dates first," Remus pointed out.

"We have it all planned out," Sirius declared. "Tomorrow we're going to go into town again and we won't come back until we have dates."

"Don't forget your sleeping bags then," Peter teased.


	10. Muggle Girls Do Things Differently

Muggle Girls Do Things Differently

"Absolutely not!" Remus finally gasped out after he had finished laughing. "What made you think I'd agree to let you use magic to get dates?"

"Because they'll never get dates any other way?" Peter suggested.

"I can get a date if I want one," Sirius argued. "I'm the best looking of all of us."

"And _so_ modest," Remus added sarcastically. "How can any girl resist such a charmer?"

"Are you saying you don't think I'm the best looking of us?"

"No. I'm just saying that looks will only get you so far and as soon as you open your gob you'll blow your chances of getting any girl to go out with you."

"You don't know that."

"What about Mary?" Peter asked. "She was fawning all over you in fifth year."

"That was different."

"Why?" Remus asked. "She liked you for your looks and as soon as she got to know you she realised what an idiot you are."

"I'm not an idiot."

"Yes you are," Remus argued. "But since we're all a bit idiotic, we don't mind so much. But if you want to get a date with a girl you'll need to try to stop opening your mouth before your brain checks in."

"I always think before I speak."

"Were you thinking when you told Mary the jumper her grandmother had knitted for her made her look fat?" James asked.

"I thought she'd want to know."

Remus sighed. "Anyway, there's no way we're going to let you do magic to get dates."

"It's just one little spell. Girls love animals and dogs especially."

"You aren't using Padfoot to get James a date," Remus insisted. "Even if I said yes, you _both_ need to get a date and, yes, that means a human date. Finding a girl with a dog doesn't count."

"Even if you not being able to talk increases your chances of getting anywhere," Peter added.

"Git!" Sirius muttered, sticking out his lower lip as he began to sulk.

Remus snickered. "Yeah, sulking is such a good look for you Sirius. That'll have the girls falling all over themselves to date you."

"I guess it's Plan B then," James said with a rather worrying gleesome expression.

"Plan B?" Remus asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Watch and learn, Moony, watch and learn," James said. "Come on Padfoot, let's get changed."

Sirius followed James out of the living room and upstairs. Remus was tempted to follow but he suspected they would be downstairs again all too soon. Peter looked equally confused as to what their friends were plotting, but he too remained in his seat until they returned.

When James and Sirius finally returned to the living room, Remus's jaw dropped at the sight of them. The laughter bubbled up in his throat and he snorted and hiccupped as he tried not to let loose a guffaw.

"What do you think?" Sirius asked as he gave a quick twirl to show off his outfit.

"Where in the world did you find those?" Peter asked. "Did you use magic to get them?"

James shook his head as he strutted clumsily across the room. The platform shoes made his progress very slow and Remus knew he wouldn't make it down the garden path without falling flat on his face.

Sirius was doing slightly better with the shoes, probably because his platforms weren't quite as large.

Their shirts were so bright Remus had to squint as the sunlight bounced off the fabric. James had chosen a rather unfortunate shade of green for his shirt, while Sirius had picked bright pink. The jeans at least looked normal, although the flares were a little extreme.

As for their hair, Remus only hoped that whatever they had done to create the muggle styles could be undone without having to shave their heads. He suspected they had been trying for the afro look, though it wouldn't have flattered either of them, even had they managed to do it properly. And properly wasn't even close to the catastrophic messes they had made.

"You aren't going to go out like that, are you?" Peter asked.

"Of course," James replied as he continued to stumble round the room. "Why not?"

"Because you look a prat," Peter replied. "What did you do to your hair?"

"Do you like it?"

"No!"

"It's an authentic muggle style. And these are real muggle clothes."

"Where did you find them?"

"Bought them when we went shopping yesterday," Sirius explained. "We were planning ahead and wanted to look good for our dates."

Remus coughed nervously. "Maybe you should just wear your own clothes," he suggested. "And keep your hair in the style you normally use."

"James could keep the new one," Peter said with a laugh. "Either of them looks a mess."

"This took me nearly an hour to style."

"You'd have been better off working on your chat up lines."

James glared at Remus and Peter and stomped towards the door, tripping over a chair in the process. "Come on, Sirius," he said. "Let's go get our dates for tomorrow's barbecue."

-o-x-o-

Remus and Peter followed behind James and Sirius as they wandered around the local park, casually and loudly debating the attributes of various girls who were taking advantage of the sunshine.

"It might help if they weren't so loud in their criticism of the ones who aren't up to their standards," Remus commented to Peter. "That blonde girl with the kite looked quite interested in Sirius until he said her friend was ugly."

"They _are_ pretty hopeless," Peter agreed.

Remus watched as Sirius homed on in a girl near the edge of a cluster of trees, his smile set to dazzling and his charm on the offensive. The girl looked far from pleased to be interrupted in reading her magazine.

"How would you like to go to a barbecue tomorrow?" Sirius asked without even so much as attempting to introduce himself.

"I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"Something else?"

"Can't you change your plans?"

"No."

"Why not?"

The girl glared up at him and tossed her hair over his shoulder. "What does it have to do with you?"

"I need a date for a friend's barbecue and I thought you'd do."

The girl's eyes widened. "I'd _do_," she echoed with a sniff. She raised the magazine up in front of her face and proceeded to ignore Sirius completely.

Across the park in the other direction James didn't appear to be doing any better. Neither Remus nor Peter could hear what he had said to the latest girl he had approached, but whatever it was, it had earned him a resounding slap round the face.

James staggered back over to where Remus and Peter were sitting on the bench, or practically falling off it as they laughed their heads off.

"What did you say to her?" Remus eventually choked out.

"Nothing that deserves to get slapped," James muttered as he rubbed at his reddening cheek.

"You must have said something."

"I just offered to pay her to come to the barbecue."

James's confession was enough to send Peter over the edge into hysteria and he fell off the end of the bench.

"You can't pay girls to go out with you," Remus chuckled. "If you tried that with a witch she'd hex you into the middle of next week."

"These are muggles though. It's different for them."

"It's just as insulting for them," Remus stated simply. "And you wonder why Lily keeps knocking you back."

"Lily's starting to warm up to me."

Remus shot James a disbelieving look. "It must be nice living in your world," he said.

Sirius wandered back over to join the others, having given up on the girl with the magazine. "Muggle girls are just too picky," he complained.

"Useless," Remus said. "Absolutely useless."

"I suppose you think you could do better?" Sirius asked. "I think you've deliberately warned every girl in town about us and told them to turn us down if we ask them out."

"Yes, of course," Peter said. "Because we have the time to do that and we know every single female in the area."

Remus sighed and looked around the park. A girl with shocking blue hair was heading towards the ice cream van that was parked near the edge of the lake. She was quite pretty and seemed to be on her own.

Ignoring Sirius and James and their accusations, he walked casually over towards the ice cream van and pretended to look over what was on offer for sale. The girl approached the van and proceeded to do the same.

Remus wasn't suave and he stumbled over his words as badly as James was stumbling around in his platform shoes. But even with his nervousness, he managed a better showing than either James or Sirius.

All it took was ten minutes of chatting and he had his own date for the barbecue.

"You cheated," Sirius said as soon as Remus returned to his friends.

"What do you mean?" Remus asked.

"You must have known her already."

"No I didn't. I never saw her before."

"Then how did you get her to go out with you while I can't even get a single girl to agree to a single stupid barbecue."

"I don't think this task was fair," James sulked. "Muggle girls aren't that different from witches."

"Yeah, they're all equally delighted at the thought of dating boys who insult them and their friends," Peter snickered.

"I never insulted anyone," Sirius argued. "What do you say, James? Ready to go get dates of our own?"

James sighed dramatically but stood up and followed after Sirius. Remus and Peter settled themselves down for a long wait.

"What about you?" Remus asked Peter as he watched Sirius and James chasing various girls around the park in their attempts to secure dates.

Peter looked thoroughly unenthusiastic at the idea of approaching any of the girls, but with some prompting and encouragement from Remus he too managed to get a date for the barbecue, who was – much to Sirius's disgust – the girl with the magazine who had turned him down.

Finally, when the afternoon had worn on and both Remus and Peter were getting thoroughly bored with waiting, James and Sirius returned from their walk round the other side of the lake with wide grins on their faces and the news that they had found two sisters willing to come to the barbecue.

"Thank goodness for that," Remus muttered under his breath, eager to return to the cottage and get something to eat. His eagerness to get back was the only thing that stopped him cracking a joke about whether either of the girls were bringing their guide dogs with them, or whether they were perhaps completely deaf, and therefore unable to hear the insults and ridiculous things his friends continually came out with.

"Final day of the bet tomorrow," James said. "And we've just about done everything on that list of yours."

"Which means we'll be hitting the beach the day after," Sirius reminded them.

Remus smiled to himself. He suspected they might be right, though he knew they'd never have managed to get so many tasks done without his and Peter's help.

He still had one day to go though, and they could still add one more task to the list tomorrow. He just had to make sure it was a good one, and one that would prove once and for all that Sirius and James couldn't manage to do things the muggle way.


	11. The Final Challenge

The Final Challenge

Remus paced the bedroom for the hundredth time. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and he still hadn't thought of something to add to the list that would ensure James and Sirius would lose the bet.

"You shouldn't have helped them so much," Peter commented around a wide yawn. "They'd still be setting up the ironing board or burning meals if you hadn't given them demonstrations and stuff."

"I know," Remus agreed. "I just didn't think they'd keep it up. I thought we'd win by default when they caved and used magic."

"You thought they'd cheat?"

Remus nodded. "Yeah. They are so dependent on magic I thought they'd try breaking into the safe or sneaking one of our wands to do something the wizard way."

Remus flopped back onto the bed and groaned with frustration. "There's got to be something we can add to the list that will stump them."

"How about something that's completely impossible?" Peter asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Like learn to fly a muggle plane."

"That takes ages to do."

"Exactly. Or how about building a snowman. It's really easy to do, but not in the middle of the summer."

Remus considered the ideas for a moment. "Nah. It has to be something they can do in a day or we'd be making it unfair for them."

"If it's too easy they'll do it right away though."

"I know. It has to be something pretty tricky, but something if they said 'you do it to prove it can be done' either of us can do."

"What about the hoovering?"

"They already did it when cleaning the house up."

"Did they do the light a fire challenge?"

"Yeah, they marked it off after setting their meal on fire. I still say that shouldn't count, but do you really want them trying to set fire to anything else?"

Peter shook his head rapidly. "No, I guess not. With my luck the next time they'll burn down the whole house."

Remus sighed loudly. "We need to think of something."

-o-x-o-

Despite the late hour James and Sirius were as wide awake as Remus and Peter, though in Sirius's case it was under protest.

"Can we just go to sleep?" Sirius complained.

"No," James insisted. "You know how sneaky Moony can be. We've got to swot up on muggle stuff ready for whatever he throws at us tomorrow."

"But it's the middle of the night."

"It's barely midnight."

"It's one o'clock!"

James looked across at the room at the clock on the wall. "Wow, time really does fly when you're having fun, doesn't it?"

"You call this fun?" Sirius picked up a pillow and threw it at James. "I need to sleep."

James took the pillow and placed it behind his back. "Okay, chapter five, muggle modes of transport."

Sirius tried to suffocate himself with his one remaining pillow.

"Sirius, are you evening listening to me?" James asked after repeating his latest question on muggle motor cars for the third time.

Sirius faked a loud snore.

"Are you asleep?"

A second snore came from Sirius's bed.

"Sirius, wake up!"

The third snore practically shook the rafters. James grabbed his pillow and proceeded to batter Sirius with it until he admitted he was awake.

"We can't learn the entire muggle studies text book in a single night!" Sirius finally shouted. "Let me sleep, Potter!"

James returned to sit on his bed and opened the book again. "What are the five main differences between muggle buses and wizard buses?" he asked loudly.

"Wizard buses stop when you want them to," Sirius muttered. "And they don't try to run you over."

James scowled at Sirius. "Can you at least try to learn something?"

Sirius glared back. "Why would Remus give us a challenge on muggle transport when we already travelled by bus and taxi?"

James, who was either too tired or too dense to have thought of that nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, we'll skip that chapter. Chapter six, muggle sports."

Sirius screamed.

-o-x-o-

Peter shot up in bed at the sound of the scream from the other room. "Wha-?"

"It's just Sirius," Remus said from where he was still pacing the room and trying to think of something to add to the list.

Peter wondered whether he should be concerned at the scream, but he was too tired to worry about for more than a moment. Chances are Sirius had merely caught sight of himself in the mirror and had startled himself. Despite their best efforts, neither Sirius nor James had managed to put their hair to rights completely.

-o-x-o-

The next morning saw four very tired and extremely irritable wizards stumbling round the kitchen in search of breakfast.

"What's the plan for today then?" Peter asked. "The guests for the barbecue were told to be here for three."

"How many people have we invited?" Sirius asked.

"Just our dates and a few of the Gryffindors from school," Remus replied.

"You invited wizards?" Sirius seemed surprised by this revelation.

"Yes."

"Do they know not to use magic?"

"I've told them all to be here between one and two," Remus explained. "They'll be flooing here well before the muggles and we'll make sure they know the rules before the muggles get here."

"Who did you invite?" James asked. "You better not have invited Lily."

"I thought you'd have wanted Lily here," Peter commented. "She being the love of your life and all that. In your imagination anyway."

"You think I'd want Lily here when I've been forced to bring a muggle girl here for a date?" James looked increasingly worried. "You didn't invite her, did you?"

"Of course I did," Remus replied with a grin. "She said, and I quote, 'what makes you think I'd want to spend a minute more than I have to with Potter? Next year is going to be bad enough as it is. What in the world was Dumbledore thinking?'"

"Huh?" James said with a frown of confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Remus shrugged. "Don't know."

"Yes, you do. Spill it, Lupin or else."

Remus raised a brow at James. "Resorting to threats, are we?"

James was about to reply when a tap on the window alerted them to the arrival of an owl carrying a letter.

They all recognised the owl as belonging to the Potters and James jumped up from the table to let it in.

"It's from my mum," James said as he tore open the letter and quickly read it. "Oh my god! Oh. My. God. Ohmygod-ohmygod-onmygod."

"What is it?" Sirius asked, trying without success to look over James's shoulder.

"Mum's forwarded on my letter from Hogwarts with the book list and … wow!"

James held out his hand and Sirius looked down at the shiny head boy badge in his palm. "Another one gone over to the dark side," he said in a miserable tone. "First Moony gets made a prefect, and now this."

James looked over at Remus and cringed. "I thought for sure you'd get it."

Remus snorted. "I didn't. Dumbledore's plan for me to keep you two out of trouble was obviously doomed from the start. Clearly this is his backup plan."

"How come Lily knew you'd been made head boy?" Peter asked curiously.

"Because she's head girl," Remus said. "Which means the poor girl has got to work with Prongs all year."

James gave a dreamy sigh. "All year. A whole year for me to work my magic on Lily Evans."

"And a year of us putting up with this," Remus muttered. "You do know the head boy has to _work_ with the head girl, not just fawn over her?"

James wasn't listening. He was off in his own little world, where Lily was madly in love with him and they were the hottest couple at Hogwarts. Remus knew he'd eventually fall back down to Earth, probably about the same time he came face to face with Lily again.

In the meantime he had thought of a challenge to put onto the list, and now James was distracted it was the perfect time to add it. With a bit of luck neither he nor Sirius would remember to check the list until it was too late.

-o-x-o-

The guests for the barbecue arrived in dribs and drabs during the course of the afternoon. The wizards were under strict orders to make sure they didn't use magic and those who arrived in wizard robes were offered a change of clothes before the muggles arrived.

Remus wasn't surprised to see James avoiding his date as though she were contagious, just in case Lily changed her mind and stopped by. He didn't want to risk her seeing him with another girl and blowing what slim chance he had with her before he'd even started their final year at Hogwarts.

Sirius on the other hand seemed more than eager to get to know the girls, none of which recognised him after he'd finally fixed his hair.

Other than a minor explosion of the barbecue itself, easily rectified with a sneaky spell from Remus, there weren't any other magical mishaps.

The party continued well into the evening and the last guests only departed shortly after ten o'clock.

The clean-up, done in true muggle fashion, took over an hour. The long day, combined with the lack of sleep the boys had had the previous night was taking its toll. Yawning widely they collapsed onto the chairs and the sofa in the living room.

Finally the topic of conversation turned to the bet.

"I can't wait to hit the beach tomorrow," Sirius declared with a wide grin.

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, suddenly a little more awake than he had been a moment before.

"Because we won the bet," Sirius explained as though speaking to a small child. "We've done all your tasks the muggle way and that means we get to go to the beach."

"What makes you think you've done everything?" Remus asked innocently.

"We'd completed all of the things on your list yesterday and you've not added anything today."

"Yes I did."

James bolted up in his seat. "What? When?"

"I added a task this morning."

"You never said anything."

Remus smirked. "There's nothing in the rules that say we have to tell you when we add something."

"I told you he was sneaky," James complained to Sirius. "Let's get the wretched list and see what he's added. We've still got nearly an hour before midnight."

Pushing each other out of the way, they ran for the list.

"Moony, you git!" Sirius shouted.

"Evil, Moony, truly evil," James said as he ran back through the living room and up the stairs.

"What did you add to the list?" Peter asked curiously. He hadn't bothered checking the list earlier in the day either, too busy worrying about something going wrong with the barbecue.

"Just a simple muggle task," Remus said with a smirk. "To do their Muggle Studies homework."

"But that isn't a muggle job," Peter pointed out.

"Muggle Studies homework is something that has to be done like muggles would," Remus explained. "Prongs and Padfoot have been complaining about it since third year. They always leave their homework to the last minute, at least until now."

"The holidays are nearly over. I'd say it's still last minute."

"Except they've been working on their homework all week, without realising it. The question is whether they will figure that out before midnight or not."

"What do you mean?"

Remus leaned closer in case one of the others was lingering in earshot. "The homework for the summer was for them to prepare for a presentation in the first week back on how to live as muggles."

"So by making them give up magic for the week, you've helped them do what they need to for their homework?"

"Yes."

"Then they'll have won the bet."

"Not if they don't figure it out."

Upstairs, James was digging through his trunk, desperately searching for the homework their Muggles Studies teacher had given them.

"Are you sure you brought it with you?" Sirius asked as he pulled everything out of his own luggage to find his own.

"I don't know. If I thought the homework would wait until we got back to school, then no."

"Can you remember what it was?"

"Would I be looking for it if I could?"

The minutes ticked away and neither boy could find anything in their belongings to give them even a hint as to what the homework was. When the grandfather clock in the downstairs hall chimed midnight they dragged themselves back downstairs.

"You admit you lost?" Remus asked as they sat back down.

James nodded and Sirius mumbled a yes.

"And we get to visit the museum and not the beach on the last day?"

"If we must."

Remus grinned and something on his face must have given away that he knew more than he was letting on.

"So, what was our homework?" Sirius asked. "I can tell you know by the smirk."

"To live as muggles to prepare for a presentation to the class."

James groaned. "And we've already done that."

"Which means we won," Sirius declared.

"But you admitted defeat," Remus reminded him.

"Git!" Sirius replied with a small smile.

"Sneaky git," James amended.

Remus chuckled. "Yes, but at least this way you'll get top marks on your presentation."

"I'd rather get low marks and a day at the beach," Sirius sulked.

"How about we split it?" Remus suggested. "The morning at the museum and the afternoon at the beach?"

James and Sirius agreed with pleasure. "Can we have our wands back now?"

Peter went to fetch their wands and held them out to them. "Don't you want to carry on with doing things the muggle way?"

"No!" the both insisted as they grabbed their wands back.

"There's only one way for us," James started.

"And that's the wizard way," Sirius finished.

Remus couldn't argue with that. They were wizards through and through. From now on they'd leave the muggle ways to the muggles themselves and stick to good old fashioned magic.

The End

AN: Thank you to everyone for your patience in waiting on this story all this time. For anyone who has left a review, thank you so much and I will get round to replying to them all, though probably after November is out of the way. I have a lot of fanfics to get finished this month. :-)


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